I’ve only been over the Togwotee Pass between Dubois, Wyoming and Moran Junction a couple of times on my way to Yellowstone, but I know it’s a beautiful way to approach either Yellowstone or Grand Teton National Park. Now they’ve just [in 2012] opened a completely reconstructed stretch of U.S. Highway 26/287, and I’m eager to see it again. Construction work involved 38 miles of the road for seven years, but of course winters are long near a 9,544-foot pass, so they could not work all year.
Dubois is a western town, less than a thousand souls but an inexpensive place to stay, and they used to have a superb restaurant called The Yellowstone Garage (named for its predecessor in that piece of real estate).
The road over the pass, first built in 1921, helped open up the southern entrance to Yellowstone to visitors from Wyoming. Now there are several guest ranches nearby and places to camp and picnic. Road improvements have added wildlife and snowmobile underpasses and scenic overlooks with interpretive signs.
Besides mountains on both sides—the towering Absarokas on your north and Gros Ventres to the south—I point out in Yellowstone Treasures: “Spectacular striped hills, composed of alternating red clay stone and white tephra layers [rock erupted from volcanoes], line the road west of town.” Maybe I’ll get to go back there next summer.