Kings Hill Scenic Byway Little Belts
— — the road the mountains keep to themselves.
Not only on a wall.
“US-89 climbs out of Belt and crosses the Little Belts to White Sulphur Springs, seventy-one miles of pine and meadow and a single pass at 7,393 feet. Showdown sits at the saddle. The byway carries less traffic in a week than the Beartooth carries in a morning. In October the aspens line the lower switchbacks below the pass.
Kings Hill Scenic Byway Little Belts, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Kings Hill Scenic Byway runs 71 miles along US Highway 89 between Belt, north of the Judith Basin, and White Sulphur Springs in Meagher County. It crosses Kings Hill Pass at 7,393 feet, the highest point on the corridor. The byway threads the Little Belt Mountains, a small island range rising above the central Montana plains and managed largely as Lewis and Clark National Forest. The route was designated a National Forest Scenic Byway in 1989. Showdown Montana, one of the state's oldest ski areas, sits at the pass.
The byway is open year-round but its character turns over with the calendar. Summer brings wildflower meadows and dispersed camping along Belt Creek. Mid-September through early October lights the aspens on the lower flanks of the pass. By Thanksgiving the road is plowed but ice-packed; Showdown opens for the season and chains or studded tires are common above Neihart. April runs ragged with snowmelt before the high meadows green out in late May. Hunting traffic peaks in October and early November.
The Little Belts see a fraction of the traffic of the Beartooth or Going-to-the-Sun corridors. Neihart, the only town along the byway proper, holds fewer than fifty year-round residents. Cell service drops out for most of the pass. The road carries hunters in October, snowmobilers in January, and ranch traffic the rest of the year. The quiet here is the working quiet of a working forest, not the curated quiet of a national park. Most days the loudest sound on the pass is wind in the lodgepole.