Yellowstone / Teton Alternative Camping Recommendations

Along the same lines, for anyone heading to YNP last minute, lol.
We were able to get reservations last week for 3 nights next month. Part dumb luck, but if you call and get on a waiting list, the park service looks for people to fill cancellations as they occur. The lady told my wife they have cancellations regularly.
The Park website also shows what time of day the first come first serve sites fill up each day. Good resource if ones trying to hit a first come first serve site.
With 3 or 4? campgrounds closed in YNP this year that doesn't help the campground crowding.
Also found lots of National Forest options just North out of the park heading towards Big Sky, Bozeman or out past Cooke city. Looked like decent availability at reserve sites, sort of plus quite a few first come first serve campgrounds.
On short notice we were able to get a NF site just outside of Bozeman on July 4 as well.
So they're out there, takes some legwork though.
As well, abundant NF for miles outside the park and if you don't need hookups, I've camped off the side of forest roads before.
Note pretty much everything we looked at was no hookups. Availability prolly isn't as good for those with big trailers in tow.

usmcshepherd, I would recommend that you stay at Lizard Creek Campground. Beautiful and Original Park Service style campground. Your rig will fit in there too. Plus you have cell coverage there.

The Tetons' campgrounds are starting to fill up so people should plan on securing their campsites before 9 AM in both parks through mid August. The larger ones, Gros Venture and Grant, will fill mid to late afternoon.

The parks are certainly worth visiting, no matter how crowded they become. But you should arrive with the knowledge that many of the places will be filled by people knowing the summer season requirements. As well as parking and pull outs at many of the popular places will not support large and extended vehicles.

Have fun and do your planning before arriving in the National Parks, this season and for ever after.

Safe travels, my friends.

b

In between the two, there are probably several places to stay. Of two that I know of Lizard Creek campground, with some good sized sites, and depending on the size of your rig - Grassy Lake road which is past Flagg Ranch. We drove down that road and for smaller rigs, there are several free campgrounds along with pit toilets, along the river. Google Flagg Ranch Headwaters Lodge & Cabins using Google Maps. Follow Grassy Lake Rd and you'll see at least three spots.

All....we are at Henry's Lake State Park currently and going to spend another day here and head into Yellowstone on Tuesday and then down to the Grand Teton's. That said, we are considering spending the day wondering through Yellowstone and then heading out the south side toward GTNP. From what everyone has said I am wondering if we would be better off heading straight to GTNP early on Tuesday to secure a site and then come back to Yellowstone? Or is there a place to stay or dry camp for the night between Yellowstone and GTNP?

If you have any control over your arrival date, get it as early in the season as you can. We were there the first week of June in a rather dry year and had no trouble getting spots inside and outside the park. The posters above have some great inside knowledge I do not possess. When we were perusing maps and guidebooks about YELL, I spied Slough Creek, down a dirt road to a small no-provisions campground in the northern section of the park. Ah, just the thing for an XTC. Not so, Bison breath. The whole off-road community was there, and this was after fording a couple small creeks. Seems a lot of people had the same idea. We stayed at Henry's Lake State Park on a cool, windy June 1st. About 15% occupancy.

Also at Bridge Bay which was about 75% occupied, but easy to get a site.

Also atop a knoll opposite the G.T.'s up I think it was up Pacific Creek and dispersed camped on F.S. jurisdiction up a rutted dirt road dodging the herds of Bison. The year was 2008, I believe.

With the PBS series on National Parks playing over and over again, the pressure on all N.P.'s should be horrendous.
jefe

skipro3 - yes, Glacier's campground status pages are wonderful and we use them. It would be nice if all national parks had this feature.

Went last year at at the West Gate the town had a Mountain Man gathering. I pulled in there and spent 3 days camping in their open field parking lot used for the vendors. I'm sorta a mountain man looking guy anyways, so they let me in and issued me a vendor's pass even. Ha!

Anyways, there were several dirt roads off the main drag on the West side of the park that I spent the rest of my time camping down those. Near the KOA West Yellowstone campground. I'd go to that KOA to use their dump, laundry and shower for a fee, and even have their breakfast which was very good! They had a chef who worked at some fancy ski resort restaurant in the winter and short order cooked breakfasts at the KOA for a month or so, while he vacationed in the area.

BTW, just so you know, Glacier is easy to get walk-up camping. They have a website that shows how many are available each day and how soon they filled. You can go back a year, two years, etc and check the dates you want to go and how soon they filled. I went in August and was at the campground at 7am, got my choice of several spots and they were full by 9:30am. That was typical. If I can find that site again, I'll edit and attach.

I don't think any are 50', but with an angle and some overhang over the logs some might look like it.

DW and I are not working there this year. But we will camp there on our way to Alaska.

Thank you, bjohns! Using Google Maps, I saw some units in there close to 50ft and around 35, estimating.

bka0721 - you nailed it. The Parks will be overflowing this year. Plan ahead.
BTW, see you in LC.