U.S. Route 212 (US 212) is a part of the U.S. Highway System that travels from Yellowstone National Park east to Edina, Minnesota. In Montana and Wyoming, it starts at the northeastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park near Silver Gate, Montana and extends approximately to the South Dakota state near Colony, Wyoming, with it crossing between the two states numerous times.
The official western terminus of US 212 is at the Northeast Entrance of Yellowstone National Park near the WyomingâÂÂMontana state line; however, some commercially produced maps show the highway within the park itself, contiguous with Northeast Entrance Road, starting from its western end at Tower Junction on the Grand Loop. From the park, US 212 begins as the Beartooth Highway, tracing the historical route of Civil War General Philip Sheridan over the Beartooth Mountains. In his book Dateline America published in 1979, the late CBS correspondent Charles Kuralt referred to the highway as "the most beautiful drive in America". The highway travels through an segment in Montana, past Cooke City, to the Wyoming state line, where it passes through the state for approximately and crossing Beartooth Pass at an elevation of above sea level. US 212 crosses back into Montana and travels approximately to Red Lodge, which is the eastern terminus of the Beartooth Highway.
US 212 continues northeast from the Beartooth Mountains for to Rockvale, where it joins US 310 and the two routes share a concurrency to Laurel. Here US 212 joins Interstate 90 (I-90), while US 310 ends, and they travel east to Billings. On the east side of Billings, US 87 joins I-90 and US 212 and the three routes continue east to Crow Agency, located within the Crow Indian Reservation.
US 212 leaves I-90 and US 87, becoming the Warrior Trail Highway, and heads east and southeast through the high plains of Montana. It passes the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, through the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, to the Wyoming state line southeast to Alzada. US 212 travels for through the isolated northeastern extremity of Wyoming before crossing into South Dakota, approximately northwest of Belle Fourche, South Dakota.