Grand Teton/Yesllowstone Campground Help

Thank you all so much! This is valuable information for us. Any other input is helpful.

Whatever time you think that you will need to see Y’stone NP you better double it!

Remember that Y’stone Park itself is about 50 miles E/W and 70 miles N/S (2.2 Mil Acres) and the Grand Loop (figure 8) road is about 140 miles around. With a 45mph speed limit (radar controlled) and the thermal attractions and the Bison think that they own the road they will sometimes back up traffic for 1/4 mile or more and the altitude (Canyon Area is 7918 ft, Old Faithful is 7365 ft and Mammoth Area is ONLY 6239 ft) it will take a full day for each loop. When walking take it easy, carry/drink lots of water as it can be very exhausting, then you will only see the highlights.

If your luck is like mine I guarantee that Old Faithful will have gone off just minutes before you arrived and will have to wait about another hour and 10-15 minutes for it to go off again kill time by walking around the upper geyser basin. When you are at Old faithful be sure to go into the Old Faithful Inn and look up when inside. When in the visitor center, Inn, Snowlodge etc they will have a sign displaying approximately when the next eruption will occur (+ or – about 10/15 minutes)

We have lived about 110 miles from the West Y’stone entrance for 50 years and go there a couple of times each summer and I still haven’t seen everything yet.

We day trip it to Old Faithful a couple of times every summer just to have lunch in the Old Faithful Inn. (the O/F INN is highly recommended to see)

All the above information to one extent or another goes for GTNP also.

In Jackson The Bar J Chuckwagon dinner/show is high on our list. We see them 3-4 times every summer! Get RESERVATIONS and be there EARLY to pick up your tickets! Tim, their fiddle player has won the Idaho State fiddle championship 8 times and the US open championship 2 times!

http://www.barjchuckwagon.com/Chuckwagon.html

It will take you about 30 minutes to get to the Colter Bay entrance which is five miles from the junction to Jackson Lake which is five minutes from Signal Mountain Camp Ground and Marina. Then, it about 15 minutes to Jenny Lake and another 15 or so to the Moose Junction. If you then go to the main highway, it about 25 minutes from there to Jackson. On the way to Jackson, you can turn to Gros Ventre and take a little longer trip, only because of the crappy roads most of the way to Slide Lake. Then return by way of Antelope Flats and see a ton of Buffalo/Bison on the way back to the main highway. Take a right turn and about 20 minutes later you are at the Moran Junction entrance and about 10 minutes from one of the most photographed spots in the world, OxBow Bend on the Snake. Another 4-5 minutes you're back at the Jackson Lake junction. These are merely driving times and don't take into account stopping for sightseeing, photos, etc. and looking at the sights all over the park.

jalichty, what is your opinion for driving time, etc, staying at Headwaters for Tetons?

Headwaters is about a mile from the entrance to Yellowstone. It is a ways from the first junction, but it's a beautiful around Lewis Canyon and Lake, etc. before you get there. Probably will take less than an hour our of your day to get to the junction. It's no longer to get into Yellowstone from Headwaters than it is from West Yellowstone. Just get up a little bit earlier and you'll be fine. That's what we do when we go to Yellowstone from Colter Bay, just get up a bit earlier than usual for fishing, drive to Yellowstone, spend all day there and then get back to our FW while it's still daylight, 8:00 or so. Might even grab a dinner in Yellowstone or just get a late one at the FW. Honest to God, it's not really that far.

Do not stay at the Headwaters and try to do both the Tetons and Yellowstone NP's. You will spend most of your time driving to Yellowstone everyday.

We haven't stayed at Headwaters, but it is probably the most centrally located campground in the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area. It's just south of the Yellowstone entrance and just north of the Grand Teton entrance. We go by there when tripping up to Yellowstone from Colter Bay and, timewise, it's about half-way from Colter Bay to the junction to go to Yellowstone Lake and Canyon or go the other way to Old Faithful.

We were there this past summer. We stayed at Headwaters, drove into Yellowstone and down to Jackson Hole. Traffic the last week of June was not bad but we started early each morning. The stay at Headwaters was ok in my book.

kknowlton wrote:

Just makes me nervous to go and expect to get first come/first serve site in park. Although that would be first choice. Nothing reservable open.

Tailwind, you might look into 1-2 nights' reservations in Grizzly, which would give you an early start into the park for those nonreservable sites. That's what some people do. Perhaps 1/2 hour drive from there to Madison CG.

Bear in mind that most of the CGs inside the park that do not take any reservations tend to be the smaller CGs, with smaller campsites. That 34-footer won't fit in the smaller in-park CGs. It will fit in Grizzly's sites pretty well, though.

Mammoth doesn't take reservations and will take a big rig. We've stayed there a few times. Stay just outside the park near Mammoth and drive to the campground early morning.

Also, by getting to a specific campground early morning at a reservable campground, such as Madison, there are cancellations to be had. We've done that for Madison and Bridge Bay.

In the Tetons, Colter Bay campground (not the RV park) and Gros Ventre don't accept reservations and they each have 300 sites. The only time they might fill is the Friday of July 4 weekend. We've always gotten a site with our 40' motorhome in those campgrounds. Gros Ventre is our favorite. It's dry camping but you don't need air conditioning in the Tetons. They have a dump station and water fill.

Your best resource is at this link Short videos and pictures of all parks in and around Yellowstone and Grand Teton (note: expand the search radius to see more)