Circle Park Road Dispersed Camping

After driving through several campgrounds and couldn’t find any open spots, we ended up driving into this camping area well after dark. We could see a lot of campers all around the area but couldn’t really find a place in the dark so we just stopped right out in the open. The next day a lot of people started Leaving and we found a great spot. This is a really nice campground. We walked all around the camp area and found quite a few camp spots that were secluded and very nice. We would definitely stay here again.

So we stayed here for a week and had a great time exploring the area.

The good: This place is right off the highway so the road getting in is great. There is a good amount of dispersed camping around here. Having the trailhead to a TON of great hiking just a couple of minutes down the road is great. During the weekdays it is pretty quiet around here. Tie Hack reservoir is also a short drive away and a lot of fun.

The bad: It gets VERY busy here on the weekends. People will kind of cram into whatever spot they can. A lot of the locals like to leave their rigs up here and therefore there isn't as much space as there should be. Talked to the Forest Service up here and people will have two campers up here and move them back and forth between two spots. Kind of a huge bummer. I think there is a lot more camping off of FSR22.

The Ugly: The highway between Buffalo and this campsite is BRUTAL. It's about 8 miles of a constant uphill grade, sometimes as much as 8%. There are no downhill areas to cool off your rig while climbing. So if you're hauling a heavy load or have an older rig be prepared to have to pull over. In our 7 days here I saw multiple rigs being loaded on tow trucks. That hill is no joke and the main reason we won't be back.

The area is nice and wide open bordering sense forest. There are plenty of areas to back into if you're looking for shade. Lot of available spots. We found a spot that was reasonably level.

The access road in was washboarded but not severely so, and it's short anyways. There were a lot of cows and even more cow pies.

AT&T coverage wasnt usable for anything serious at 5mbps download and practically nothing up. TMobile coverage was non-existent. Both were tested with a roof mounted Pepwave MIMO antenna. Starlink provided 15/5 down/up.

This is another beautiful boondocking spot, if you have Verizon cell service or don’t need service. The access road is dirt washboard but fairly level and wide enough for two rigs to pass by. It’s big rig friendly, if you don’t mind going slowly and navigating a few ruts. There are plenty of wide-open spaces and some secluded spots too. There are “camper-built” fire rings everywhere and the spot we chose had a pile of firewood and, of course there’s plenty of kindling.

We received a bovine welcome on our first night and watched a couple of cowboys do a little herding. And just a side note, there are more than a few cow pies.

The cell service is marginal; We have Verizon and were able to function but our “neighbors” had AT&T and had to go back out to the highway to make calls. Even Verizon service varies widely within the area. For example, at our fire ring, I had no service but if I moved 20 feet away, I had one bar on LTE. If cell service is significant to you and you’re able to do so, drive around a bit to see if you can find a “sweet spot”. (The roads are fairly consistent and there are a lot of spots to turn around.)

Regarding the actual campsites, we didn’t see any numbers, just lots of tire tracks and fire rings. A few spots are quite level, most are slightly sloped. Our levelers decided to quit on this trip so we used the 10” yellow blocks to level. (We used 3 blocks under the right-front and 1 under the left).

Overall, this is a spectacular boondocking spot with a lot of room. We arrived the afternoon of Labor Day and saw about 10 other campers. Obviously, that will vary but it would require a huge crowd to fill this area.

We came here as a second choice after reading Grouse Mountain Dispersed was closed. It was a great second choice! The dirt road is level and maintained. Any size rig can access the camping areas. There are many places to camp. There were a lot of rigs already in the area. If you go to the end of the road you will find a forest service campground for $17.75 a night. We stuck with the free sights and pulled in to a spot right off the road. Very green. Lots of rock outcroppings and many brushes and trees. We saw deer and small rodents.

Our site was close to the NFS Circle Park Campground but it was closed so we chose a beautiful open spot overlooking a meadow with mountains in the distance. It was off forest roads 20 and 384 and very near the Circle Park Trailhead. We loved our time here and were thrilled to have a moose family walk near our campsite on our last morning. There were very few other campers around and there is plenty of room to spread out.

This area is among the closest to Buffalo, WY, so it was fairly busy. There are multiple locations with fire pits for both large and small rigs along Circle Creek Rd. The road access is good, but not far beyond these coordinates the road got much rougher (N44.28260, W106.96361). We saw both a male moose and separately a female with calf. Only negatives were fairly regular ATV traffic and some shooting going on in the near distance. Whether the shooting was from an organized range or just one or more random individuals I can't say. Still, a nice area. Elev. 7980 feet.