National Park campgrounds can fill up quick. I found a great little place just outside the North entrance to one of the parks. Free camping outside Yellowstone!
If you have Yellowstone National Park on your radar as a place to spend a few days, make sure you book your accommodations ASAP. If you’re planning on staying inside the park, they fill up FAST and months in advance. In case you aren’t lucky enough to get a spot inside, you will be driving for a bit to get in and out.
Our first night, we stayed on the edge of Cody. It was a long drive into the park. On the last night we stayed just south of the Tetons. In the middle though? We found this. National Forest Road 3243 is so close to the Yellowstone entrance, you can almost reach out and touch it! (ok, a bit of an exaggeration, but you can see it!)
THE DETAILS
Name: National Forest Road 3243
Location: Gardiner, Montana
GPS: 45.070611, -110.680043 Elevation: 7065
Cost: Free
Number of campsites: 10+
Hookups: None. Dry dispersed primitive camping.
Amenities: Fire pits in some areas.
Privacy: You are directly off the road, so none.
Parking: Dirt national forest road.
Noise: Fairly quiet. No traffic except other campers.
Cell signal: Verizon had a few bars, though Sprint had no service.
Scenery: You’re on the side of a small mountain. Great view of Yellowstone north entrance in the distance.
Stayed: 1 night, in August 2017
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THIS FREE CAMPING OUTSIDE YELLOWSTONE
Gardiner is a gateway town to Yellowstone National Park, at the north entrance. It has a great little downtown, due to tons of shops, restaurants, and coffee places. If this will be a pit stop for you, make sure you get there early enough to walk around the town a bit, then head to your camp.
It’s rustic and authentic.
This was a surprise stop. We hoped to be able to snag a campsite at the Eagle Creek Campground, but weren’t able to. It was full, but it turns out there is a National Forest road directly behind it! Road is a little rough. Drove around 2 miles before stopping at a good looking spot. The photo above was the view to the road straight below where we stopped. You can see a van, and a tent off on the right side
There are spots near water at the base. Any car could make it down the road, so no 4×4 required. Unsure on tow behind larger rigs. We stopped about halfway up the mountain, and it started to rain so I didn’t hike up and explore any further. Each spot we passed was plenty big enough for smaller vehicles like a class B, C, or tent campers.
I did see a few shorter tow behind campers go up the road, and never saw them go back down, so I’m guessing there is room at the top of the mountain to turn around.
The view was particularly lovely. Watched the rain coming in, and all the headlights pour out of Yellowstone after the sun went down.
Each spot consists of a small dirt pull off, directly on the shoulder of the road.
Woke up in the morning to see someone had set a tent up in the same pull off we were parked, but they were behind us far enough away that it wasn’t bothersome. I say that… I’m sure we were the bothersome ones who started a motorcycle before 7am to get it loaded back into the van when we packed up the next morning. Whoops.
Watching the rain come in with a few very very overpriced beers from one of the Yellowstone National Park gift shops?
In summary, this was a great way to end the evening!
Curious about what else there is to do while you’re in Wyoming? See a list of the places I recommend here.
Have any favorite places yourself? Come tell me about them where I spend most of my time on Instagram!
