We spent one night here driving from Wall, South Dakota to our home in Indiana. I looked online to find somewhere to stop and saw that this campground only had two spots left, so we changed it and made our way to the office to see if there would be any spots left when we got there. This was a nice stop and a nice break from the wind we have been experiencing on our long drive home. The park office employee was very knowledgeable and knew a lot about the campground and the park itself. There are buffalo, but we didn’t have a lot of time to spend looking at them. We did walk on one of the trails at the end of the campground that cuts through a field and around the lake, but I only wanted to get some good shots of the sunset, which was beautiful. We ran into some deer near the trail and lots of wild birds. This is a nice stop for anyone needing a last minute stop, provided there are campsites left.
Nightly Rate: $34.00
Days Stayed: 1
Site Number: 32E
We stayed here in mid-May from the 16th-20th. We had a tough time finding a spot to camp at in Yellowstone initially as the first campground we booked through Xanterra for our first planned dates were cancelled by the agency for reasons unknown. We then found out, after some online searching and a forum through TripAdvisor, that Recreation.gov and Yellowstone began a new partnership that would allow campers to choose their campsite online instead of betting on the first-come first-served system. This was really helpful for us, as we were traveling from miles away and had no idea when we would be able to make it to the campsite.
Our site was clean and level. It is a pull through site, but it doesn’t join another campsite’s area like a lot of the other ones did. It was fairly shaded, but nice for the time we were there. The sun was out a lot so that helped our solar panel with charging our batteries to keep our fridge running as this whole campsite does not have electricity or showers. The nighttime was especially nice because of the non-electric atmosphere, making it hard for many people to play their music and have a whole lot of lights out on their campers. Cooking wasn’t hard either, and the camp and park rangers request that all of your food you make is eaten immediately and not left out. All trash is to be disposed of in your camper or the special trash bins they have throughout the park. The firewood you can buy at the campsite was good for s’mores as long as you don’t make too much of a mess in order to not attract bears and other animals into the area. We did feel safe with the camp hosts patrolling the area often and making sure everything was in order. The camp rules say that you can only run your generator from 8am-8pm, but that gets hard sometimes when you get back late. We didn’t have anyone tell us that we needed to turn it off, and our generator was pretty quiet, so the trucks driving by were louder than our generator.
We didn’t see any bears or bison in our campsite, though there was evidence of bison right by our campsite. We did, however, see a group of elk in the area by our campsite and a very pretty magpie that flew around the entrance, as well as several prairie dogs. The accessibility to the Lamar Valley area and Mammoth Hotsprings and Gardiner was nice as well. If you stay here, be prepared for amazing views and lots of memories!
Nightly Rate: $25.00
Days Stayed: 4
Site Number: 33
We spent one night here driving from Wall, South Dakota to our home in Indiana. I looked online to find somewhere to stop and saw that this campground only had two spots left, so we changed it and made our way to the office to see if there would be any spots left when we got there. This was a nice stop and a nice break from the wind we have been experiencing on our long drive home. The park office employee was very knowledgeable and knew a lot about the campground and the park itself. There are buffalo, but we didn’t have a lot of time to spend looking at them. We did walk on one of the trails at the end of the campground that cuts through a field and around the lake, but I only wanted to get some good shots of the sunset, which was beautiful. We ran into some deer near the trail and lots of wild birds. This is a nice stop for anyone needing a last minute stop, provided there are campsites left.