Eagle Creek Campground

Only 2 miles from Gardiner, MT and about 4 miles from the North entrance to Yellowstone National Park, is this small Nat’l Forest Campground. It is suitable for big rigs but beware, the drive coming up was a little steep and scary, but easy. No water, dumpsters or dump station, but there are pit toilets and food lockers. Each site has picnic table and fire pit. There is a camp host on duty. We are here mid June 2019 and the park is full.

Madison and Mammoth were the only campgrounds open before May 17 in park and filled before noon. You can see Mammoth from the road and it was not only full but looked like a sardine tin. This is a lovely alternative campground and we ended up staying here our whole visit, which was shortened by rain. Road up is very steep but definitely doable. Designated sites without pads, you just drive onto the grass. Creek running by, buffalo in campground every night. Peaceful and quiet. Heavily used, we stopped about 2pm the first night and there were lots of people coming in looking for a site in the early evening, with no luck. Better than staying in the park actually. We will camp here again when we return to Yellowstone. No cell service at all, but there isn’t any to speak of in Yellowstone either.

Mammoth camp ground was full so we stopped in Gardiner, MT for pizza at Yellowstone pizza company and look for an alternative we found Eagle Creek many people here even on 10-2-18 but we still found a spot. Its a nice place and the ranger came around early in the morning to check up on things and clean restock pit toilets (vary clean) If looking for free WiFi go to the library in town its free and fast.

We arrived later in the day and thought we would head over to Yellowstone in the morning to find a first come site. It was so peaceful (Mammoth Springs campground looked really crowded) and we could literally see Mammoth from our site, we stayed there the whole time. You can’t beat the price and it was completely worth the extra 15 minutes to get to the park.

Most sites are grassy and may not be very level, but all will be doable with some plastic leveling tiles and/or positioning of your tongue jack. There is no privacy between sites but for the most part are spaced far enough apart that you are not right on top of your neighbors. To get to the campground, look for the small sign near Kremer C-Store in Gardiner. From there it is roughly a 2+ mile climb on a dirt road to the entrance. The road from Kremer's is dirt with a few switchbacks. I was here in June 2016, and the campground was full every night and many times before 4 p.m. This is a good option for an overnight stop to get a jump into Yellowstone NP to secure a non-reservable site in the N.P. or even to stay here (you can't beat the cost of $7.00, S/A 1/2 off) and explore the park from here (the North entrance is right in Gardiner and then a 5 mile trip to Mammoth Hot Springs area). Due to the size, the campground was quiet at night. Most of the sites will fit a travel trailer and a few will fit a bigger beast. Just to give you an idea, the campground host had a Class A with a toad that he pulled up here. Verizon is great - 3-4 bars LTE. None of the sites are reservable. I believe the best site is the one that you will see first upon turning into the campground road (one-way narrow road), site #1. It will be however the furtherest from any vault toilet.

There is no water or dump station at this park and only vault toilets.