Two Top, Island Park, Old Railroad Grade
Level of Difficulty: 5- Lower Intermediate
Elevations: 6325' to 8625'
Starting Point Coordinates: N44°30.966' W111°18.271'
Length of Trail: 61 miles
Approximate time: 6 hours
Dates of Rides: 7/24/10
Description: This was an ATV ride rather than my usual dirt bike. My wife and I met her sister and husband to celebrate her sister's birthday. We went to the
Mack's Inn Playhouse on Friday night for a great show and delicious dinner. We stayed in a friend's cabin who happen to have an ATV which they offered to lend us. My brother in law is a farmer in Montana so he brought his four wheeler down. I carefully laid out a 38 mile loop that would bring us to the Meadow Creek Lodge(a wonderful place to eat). Unfortunately, I based the trail on our snowmobile ride in 07, not realizing that most of the snowmobile trails are not accessible with an ATV. As we came down the northwest side of Two Top Mountain, I looked in vain for a left turn as we vered further and further off of the route loaded to my GPS. I didn't realize that all of the signs of maps of trails are mostly for
snowmobiles! I didn't realize how far off the route we were until we hit the highway and discovered we were just 7 miles west of West Yellowstone. I asked a few people but they didn't know the ATV trails. We went back up the trail aways and found a trail that we had missed, however, after an hour and 10 miles of trail we ended up just one mile further up the highway! We finally decided to just run down the side of the highway 5 miles until we got to the gas station on the north end of Island Park. We went down the ditch from there on a very, very rough, lightly used trail to Meadow Creek Road. The ladies were pretty exhausted from the ride by then and it was 2:30 p.m., and no lunch. Luckily it wasn't far from there to the Meadow Creek Lodge where we enjoyed some great burgers. (We first discovered the Meadow Creek Lodge on our
snowmobile trip and were hoping it was open in the summer as well. It is open year around.) The 38 mile ride turned out to be over sixty, which seems to be par for the course for me. Over all it was a really fun ride, most of it was very easy trail with just a mile or so of steeper, rocky, roots on the East side of Two Top. We were able to see a cow moose and calf on the old Railroad grade, but it bounded off the trail before I could get a picture.
Google Map
(By clicking on the "View in Larger Map" you can export the map into Google Earth and get the full effect of a 3-D view in which you can turn and spin. After clicking on trail link, just click on "View in Google Earth" then "Open". You must have Google Earth installed on your computer, which is a free download.)
Elevation Profile: 
Slide show of the Ride: