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.
