Yellowstone visit

[eleosky]

Looking over our Yellowstone trip next year, Custer looks like a nice place to stop for a few days. Anyone know of a good campground to stay at. Thanks Ed

[WhittleBurner]

We stayed at Custer State Park, Leigon Lake Campground toward the west side of the park. We were there for a week and never ran out of places to go and see and if we're in the area wouldn't hesitate to stay for another week.

[sallymac]

When you say spring, beware of snow. Yellowstone is high elevation and some of the roads may not be open until early/mid June.

Yellowstone/Teton is really magical. My husband and I took our 29RS there last summer (late June/early July). We came from the west, so I can't give you route tips.....

We stayed a week at Flagg Ranch (between Teton and Yellowstone) and Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park (in West Yellowstone). Both had full hook-ups. Grizzly is a traditional RV park while Flagg Ranch had the feel of a campground. We liked both locations. We explored Teton and southern Yellowstone from Flagg Ranch and that worked out great. Teton is a wonderful park too. Highlights/recommendations of our trip:
- evening float trip down the Snake River in Teton. It's a float trip, not white water rafting.... We saw bald eagles, beavers and elk.
- Teton hiking was wonderful. We used the app, AllTrails to find hikes that met our criteria
- July 4th in West Yellowstone. Small town festivities like a pie sale, parade and spectacular fireworks show
- Horseback/trail ride with Diamond P Ranch outside West Yellowstone
- Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. Great place for adults and kids to learn about these magnificent creatures. They have a great kids program which we enjoyed watching too.
- Staying in West Yellowstone because we could walk to town for groceries, pizza, etc.
- Steak dinner at Bullwinkle's Saloon
- Breakfast at Old Faithful Inn, Canyon and Mammoth Hot Springs. Crowds/parking in the park can be an issue. Not sure if next year, crowds will be down because of Covid19, though. We entered the park by 7am, followed by breakfast at one of the historic inns. We had a parking place and generally beat the crowds to the main attractions
- Yellowstone hiking allowed us to quickly escape the crowds. Usually once we got beyond a mile of the main attractions, the crowds dissipated
- Driving all the roads of Yellowstone with enough time to stop when we wanted to
- Museum of the National Park Ranger near Norris Geyser Basin

Have a great time!

[bryancass]

I'd be interested in what you find out, eleosky. I was planning a trip from NY to Yellowstone for late this summer until Coronavirus messed up everyone's year.

From what little I've researched, I learned that late August is the best time to go if you want to avoid the peak crowds. And I believe there is only one campground within the park with electricity -- Fishing Bridge, and it was going to be closed this year anyway for renovations.

So I wonder about campgrounds outside the perimeter of the park.

[eleosky]

Thanks so much for the information, we will be coming from Pittsburgh. Planning on entering on the East side of Yellowstone, and staying at the Fishing Bridge Campground. Planning on May/June of next year. Did you camp in Yellowstone or at private campgrounds? Ed

[eleosky]

Working in our Yellowstone trip for next year, The Fishing Bridge Campground should be open by then. If we can get in, is this a good place to tour the park. Any suggestions on other Campgrounds that would have full hook up and handle out 3019? Ed

[Jmick35]

Thanks so much for the information, we will be coming from Pittsburgh. Planning on entering on the East side of Yellowstone, and staying at the Fishing Bridge Campground. Planning on May/June of next year. Did you camp in Yellowstone or at private campgrounds? Ed

Yellowstone East gate and Cody WY are connected by Route 14. Along it are several National Forest campgrounds. Not all of the sites are full hookup, reservations are on line. We stayed in Rex Hale Campground 4 days and explored the east side of Yellowstone. Then we towed our rig in the east gate and due west going out the west gate and stayed for 10 days at Henry Lake State Park Idaho. Beautiful modern park with new facilities 50 amp full hookup was about $40. Going out the west gate you will drive from WY through MT into ID in 5 minutes.
Fishing Bridge campground in the park was closed last year for renovation. From Pittsburgh to Cody we arrived mid day on the 4th day. When traveling cross country like that Karen and I will share driving and we will only stop for rest and fuel. We will free camp at Cabelas, Walmart, Sams, rest stops, etc. for the night and pull out in the morning.
From there we went south to The Grand Teton National Park where we stayed for a week.
Feel free to contact me with any questions.

[Jmick35]

Hi all. new to the forum. Just purchased a 2930 Last February, planning a trip from Pittsburgh to Yellowstone next spring. If anyone could give some suggestions, on what rout we should take and places to stop along the way. Thanks Ed

Ed we live 15 minutes apart feel free to contact me for more info.

[eleosky]

Thanks, We are planning on stopping at a few places along the way. Badlands, Black Hills, Cody then Yellowstone. After that going down the Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, Denver, Kansas City, then back home. Total time is 42 days, 4100 MI. We are about 10 Min apart, my E mail [email protected] maybe we can get together sometime. Ed

[lionfish]

Hi all. new to the forum. Just purchased a 2930 Last February, planning a trip from Pittsburgh to Yellowstone next spring. If anyone could give some suggestions, on what rout we should take and places to stop along the way. Thanks Ed

Cannot give you a route between Pennsylvania and Yellowstone as I live in Colorado. However, one quick way to find a route is to sign onto to the Chrome browser and enter something like: distance between Pittsburgh PA and Yellowstone national park. You will get a route, possible several to get you where you want to go. To figure out places to say, think about how many hours you want to put in a day, how many miles you can go in a day. Enlarge the map and figure out which town is closest to the time/mileage you want to go for a day. Search for a campground around the town. AAA has a nice assortments of RV campgrounds by sections of the US (ex. Western US), they also can help you with sights to see in the area. They will even help you plan a trip and give you maps with routes marked on it. NO, I have nothing to do with AAA, but a couple of years ago when we got our 5er, they were a big help on figuring out how to plan your trip and willing to show you how to do so for yourself.
We picked up our 5er in Michigan and went up to South Dakota, doing the Black Hills thing, awesome, lots to see and do, plenty of decent full hookup campgrounds. Rushmore? The ride there was the best part (without 5er), beautiful country, Rushmore itself, worth about an hour of your time unless you want to hike up close. Honestly, for us it was not a highlight. Custer State Park is awesome, spring time is great with the new Cinnamon's (baby buffaloe) running around.
We went to Yellowstone from CO last year. We went after the kids were back in school and although we had some rainy days and pushed the snow on the high passes on the way home, the crowds were much smaller, although considerable. We camped outside the park on the Teton side, the Teton's offer awesome views with excellent hiking and fishing. We did the Northern loop in a very long day, then spent time in the lower loops seeing things we
wanted to spend more time at. To do it again, I would camp inside the park for a week and then move South to the Tetons for 4 or 5 days.
So much to see and do, it's best for you to grab a book on the area and pick and and choose by your personal interests.
Good luck and enjoy!