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davehultin's avatar
davehultin
Explorer III
Jun 19, 2023

Belle Fourche River Campground - Devils Tower Wyoming

Tomorrow our family heads out on a week-long trip, and one of the stops will be at Belle Fourche River Campground which is part of Devils Tower National Monument. There are 46 sites, all first-come first-served, but I recently learned that Loop B is temporarily closed which takes out 30 of the sites.

That leaves 16 first-come first-served sites. I'm curious if anyone has any experience during this closure as to when those 16 sites typically fill up during a weekday. (We'll arrive on Wednesday of this week, June 21.)

I have a feeling I'll have to prep the family for an early morning start from the previous night's campground... :-|
  • Well as it turned out, 12:30 was too late. The sign at the gate said so and so did several park rangers. We had to drive through the campground to turn around and I could l swear a few were open yet, but what do I know? Anyways, on to the KOA, plenty of space there. Time to watch Close Encounters! That is, until the rain clouds opened up about halfway through. I guess you never quite know what adventure is in store. All is good!
  • There is a native American celebration. Your only chance might be the expensive KOA.
  • I'm not afraid of dropping an extra $80 at the KOA, I'd just rather not have to!!!

    But seriously, I'm looking forward to what appears to be a very pleasant Belle Fourche River Campground. I'm hoping we can grab a spot there. We visited Devils Tower last year as a quick stop on our family vacation to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. Looking back we all felt we should've made it more than a quick stop, so back we go this year!

    If we do have to go the KOA route, the part that appeals to me is that they play Close Encounters of the Third Kind each night. That's brilliant!
  • The NPS campground is nice. We were there a month or so ago. It was full every night!
    I would personally not take a chance on getting first come site. I don't like high priced campgrounds such as KOA, when have little choice have to spend the bucks.
  • enblethen wrote:
    The NPS campground is nice. We were there a month or so ago. It was full every night!
    I would personally not take a chance on getting first come site. I don't like high priced campgrounds such as KOA, when have little choice have to spend the bucks.


    In your estimation, what time will the campground start to get full during a weekday?
  • 11-12:00 or some will wait next to a site for the previous party to leave!

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