In this episode, Gary and I embark on an impromptu adventure through the stunning Yellowstone National Park after our initial plans fell through (no campsites in Glacier National Park).
We were honestly a bit hesitant, mainly because of the sheer amount of social media showing tourons (tourist-moron combo) everywhere, especially when we prefer more quiet solitary-ish hikes.
So would we be disappointed? Would we be fully frustrated after just a day? Nope!
I know people talk about Yellowstone being large, but you really just need to step into the park to get a full understanding. From the west entrance of Yellowstone to the Biscuit Basin Parking lot (where we decided to try our first hike) was a drive of 45 minutes, not including traffic, construction, or bison jams!
Luckily, the entire drive is absolutely beautiful, so it doesn’t seem too bad (as long as you don’t get hit by major construction delays).
Where We Stayed⛺🗺️📌
We’re sharing our camping and other locations on iOverlander (boondocking, etc.) and Campendium (established campsites).
Old Montana Prison & Auto Museum
We’re so glad we found this gem on iOverlander on our way out to Yellowstone!
They have a large space for several RVs to park overnight. It is right by the road and you do have *some* traffic, but it died down later in the evening.
The auto museum was astoundingly large and had a lot of information about many of the cars. I had to peel Gary away after some time!
They also had several smaller museums across the street that were worth a visit. If you’re in the area, it’s definitely worth a stop. If you have a Good Sam membership, you can reduce the tickets from $18 to $14 – and the ticket is good for an entire year (ya just gotta find out where you placed it!).
Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park – (Link to Campendium)
We were honestly really limited by where we could stay. I’m *guessing* we may have got in due to a cancellation, but I don’t know that for sure.
The park itself was well-maintained, the check-in was quick and easy and we were grateful to be able to use their laundry facility (which was also clean and working!). They have a small store at the main office where you check in for small items as well which was nice to have.
You are walking distance from the main town which was great on those days you get back late and don’t want to cook!
The only issue we had was that the no hookup site was not really meant for a 25′ truck camper. We originally wanted to “unturtle” or take the camper off and only drive the truck into the park. The site we ended up with says it can handle campers 25′ and less but if we took the camper off, our nose would have been in the street! We made due by just leaving the camper on (which allows us to back up more) and then took the diesel hit by hauling it around for several days. We also had to maneuver around the larger trees in the area. Probably not a big deal for most folks beyond us tall truck campers.
So, if you have a truck camper and want to remove it during your stay, you’ll have to get an electric or full hook-up site. We paid $90 for the electric site and $60 for the no-hookup site.
Even with this caveat, we’d be happy to stay at this park again.
Where We Hiked 🥾🗺️📌
🥾Upper Geyser Basin, Mystic Falls, and Old Faithful Observation Hike(Link to AllTrails)
The link above is our actual hike. There’s an ‘official’ one that only has the Upper Geyser Basin and Mystic Falls loop. Great hike.
We chose to hike the Upper Geyser Basin early in the morning. The mist was awesome but not as great for picture-taking. We did get to take better pics on the way back to the parking lot to continue on to Mystic Falls. You can easily stop at the falls and head back, but we did the entire loop which was pretty steep. I will say I was quite whooped by the time I got to the top. But the view was worth it!
Our Journey Map⛺🥾🗺️📌
We also have a currently free map on Google with all of the places we’ve stayed along with the related video and links to more detailed reviews on iOverlander , Campendium and Google Maps.
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