Going out West
My wife and I are retired and are heading out west this June to visit the NP's. Our plans are to start at The Badlands NP, then onto Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave NP and Crazy Horse. We then drive up to De...
Forum Discussion
Some good advice so far; time spent at the various locations is a subjective thing. We spent a week in the Black Hills, still didn't do & see everything we wanted to, and felt it was one of our best camping vacations ever! I could spend a whole day at Crazy Horse, though 2 hours seems about right for Mt. Rushmore. :) Lots of good choices for camping in the Hills; search this forum for "Mt Rushmore" or "Black Hills" and you'll find a lot of recommendations. Custer SP was mentioned, and it's quite nice. Also lots of recommendations for YNP CGs on this forum as well.
I would NEVER consider trying to camp in/near Yellowstone & the Tetons in the summertime without reservations. There was a good point made about having a generator - if so, you could perhaps get into one of the first-come, first-served CGs, which have no hookups (only Fishing Bridge RV Park in YNP has any hookups; otherwise you will have to camp outside the park), but there's a trick to that too - mostly arriving between 9 and 10 AM and just waiting until a site opens up. There's always someone who gets lucky, it seems, and advises folks not to bother with reservations, but I have seen people turned away because everything is booked solid. Don't risk it. You can use one base camp for both Yellowstone & the Tetons, though Mammoth would be the worst choice for this option (opposite side of YNP from the Tetons).
I would NEVER consider trying to camp in/near Yellowstone & the Tetons in the summertime without reservations. There was a good point made about having a generator - if so, you could perhaps get into one of the first-come, first-served CGs, which have no hookups (only Fishing Bridge RV Park in YNP has any hookups; otherwise you will have to camp outside the park), but there's a trick to that too - mostly arriving between 9 and 10 AM and just waiting until a site opens up. There's always someone who gets lucky, it seems, and advises folks not to bother with reservations, but I have seen people turned away because everything is booked solid. Don't risk it. You can use one base camp for both Yellowstone & the Tetons, though Mammoth would be the worst choice for this option (opposite side of YNP from the Tetons).
