Eagle Creek Campground

Overall, a great spot to camp. Close to town, close to Yellowstone north entrance, but beautifully set in a quiet spot on top of a hill. It is first-come first-serve, and there is a honor system drop box by the bull item board for the camping fee. There were several spots open when we arrived at 8pm, Oct. 13th.
What I didn’t see in the reviews initially was any notes about the steep dirt road to get up here. It’s about 7 mins from the bottom of the road to the top and is steep for 3/4 of the way. There are 2 sharp switchbacks that we had to take nice and slow in our motor home. We were able to drive a 32ft class C motor home up okay, but it was a bit nerve wracking as there are very few guard rails on the steep spots. We haven’t ventured back down the hill yet but will definitely put the RV in a low gear and be careful.
A few notes I would have appreciated knowing before arriving: quiet hours are 10pm-6am. Our generator is pretty noisy so we had to turn it off at 10 and bundle up for sleeping. There are many signs and warnings about bears frequenting the area, and keeping all your food items locked up. The bathroom is a basic outhouse. It’s reasonably clean, just cold.
Positive notes: it is BEAUTIFUL. Almost 360 views of the surrounding mountains. There are picnic tables and fire rings at each site. The snow in mid-October makes for a unique mountain and Yellowstone viewing experience. There is a gas station/general store right at the bottom of the hill before the turnoff. Super handy. The sites are level enough to set up with blocks and hydraulic jacks. Excellent cell reception with Verizon. Feels very safe and peaceful. The other campers have been good neighbors.

Eagle Creek Campground is a well-maintained campground just a few miles up the hill from Gardiner and the North Entrance to Yellowstone. The true benefit of this campground is that it is a first-come first-served campground close to Yellowstone. If you didn't get reservations in the Park, this is a good option to try. There aren't any amenities in the campground other than vault toilets and bear boxes (no water or garbage service) but it's only a 15 minute drive to Mammoth Hot Springs. About an hour and twenty down to Old Faithful. The campsites vary in quality, but most have a grassy area, which is unusual given how dry the area is. Most are reasonably level but you will still likely need a few blocks. About half will fit a larger rig and the remainder are good for small RVs and trailers. Plenty of tenters here as well.

As you might imagine, this campground fills quickly. It was usually full by 3pm during our mid-September visit. The two double campsites were the last to fill (because they cost twice as much). If you need a spot, it's worth it to grab one and then try and move to a single spot the next morning. The camp host is excellent. It's worth stopping and talking to him if you need a spot.

There is some dispersed camping on the road that leads to the left right after the campground entrance. It winds up the hillside and has pullouts that allow camping after about 2 miles. They are good for an overnight before heading into the park in the early morning.

FYI - there is no AT&T coverage here. You'll get signal a mile or so down the road toward Gardiner.

We stayed two nights at this campground just outside Gardiner, Montana (and super-close to Yellowstone's north entrance). The two miles up the mountain from Gardiner on the somewhat-washboarded gravel road weren't too bad. Glad it wasn't actually a very long drive! The road was wide enough that two cars were safely able to pass in opposing directions. We never had to drive it in rain, so I don't know whether there might have been any effect from that. This was dry camping, but we didn't have any trouble at all having plenty of sun to charge via our solar panels. We filled up with potable water at the Gardiner Sinclair just north of Gardiner. The water was free, but they did charge $20 to dump, which we felt was a fair trade-off. We were happy to have fresh water and a nice dump station so close to the campsite. We were in a grassy, pull-through site that required only front-to-back leveling. With my husband's Golden Age Pass discount, we only paid $7.50 per night for our camping. We arrived about 11:30a and had our choice of several sites. All sites were taken both nights by about 3p.

Two male elk came into the campground each evening and wandered around eating. For a couple hours. :) There are horse corrals at the campground, so maybe they're what contributed to the extreme number of biting flies. They made things miserable between mid-morning and mid-evening. We met a really friendly young couple and got to chat quite a bit with them. They said they came frequently to Eagle Creek, since they only lived two hours outside Jackson, Wyoming. They told us that in May and September the flies weren't nearly so bad. We'd definitely go back and try again if we could try in any month other than high summer.

We went into town one morning and enjoyed a yummy brunch at Yellowstone Grill. Check out their sausage and biscuits! Yum!

Had to cancel prior reservations early due to wildfires and arrived on a Thursday. We got the last spot available and had to park on the side of a hill. The view was spectacular but, we could not get level. There was a huge, level campsite across from us with a little tent in it and nobody around until night. There was easily enough room for 2 RVs. It just seems like common sense for the park to have an area set aside for tent campers.

We arrived on a Monday in early May at 9 AM and there were half a dozen sites to pick from. Site 15 was a large grassy site that was fairly easy to level. The cost reflects our access pass. No amenities, not even trash receptacles, just a pit toilet. No AT&T cell service; there was cell service down the road in Gardiner. There was no host, but a forest service employee drove through most days. We loved the views, and that it was 10 minutes to Gardiner, 20 minutes to Yellowstone’s north entrance, and an hour to Lamar Valley. One afternoon, we had a herd of elk spend the afternoon in the campground.

For photography, we entered the park about 5 - 5:30 AM and generally had no trouble driving or parking in the Park. A couple snow days, but they cleared the roads very quickly. In Gardiner, we highly recommend Wonderland Cafe, amazing bison burgers and sweet potato fries. We went in May to see baby animals and were not disappointed. Lots of newborn baby buffs, and we saw a mama grizzly with two cubs by the Lamar River early one morning.

We liked the convenience of the campground’s access to the northern sections of Yellowstone, but it did take us three hours to reach Old Faithful with a bison traffic jam and some photo stops. In our nine days, we drove 700 miles within the Park—Yellowstone is huge!

Several miles up a steep dirt road above Gardiner. No problem pulling our 26 foot trailer although there are several washboard sections.

We think our spot had one of the best views but all the spots are nice. Several have access to the pretty stream that runs through the campground.

We arrived late afternoon on Sunday and there were just 3 or 4 spots left. Look for the little tags clipped to the number markers for each spot - we almost set up in a spot that was already taken because we didn’t notice these. The camp mostly filled up each night (although not until evening at this time of year).

It was easy to level in our spot. A couple of the streamside spots looked difficult. Each spot had a bear box and a big grated fire pit. Everything was clean/well maintained.

No services and no garbage. Verizon good enough for browsing, and fine for video calls with an antenna. Google fi spotty outside trailer and non existent inside.

Incredible views. We loved this campground. We originally intended to move to mammoth campground after one night here, but the sites in mammoth were smaller, closer together and harder to get into with a big trailer. Also better cell reception at eagle creek. We thought the extra ~20 minutes to get into Yellowstone was totally worth it.

This campground is beautiful and up on the top of the hill of Gardiner. It was very easy to find as there are signs everywhere. And it was fairly easy to navigate with a large rig as ours is 42ft fifth wheel. We pulled up around 3pm and there was only 2 spots left. The time we stayed it tended to fill up on weekends earlier maybe around 12pm and during the week maybe around 3pm. Make sure you check the site tags to make sure the spot is not reserved.

There are no hookups, but they have bathrooms. They allow generators but you do have to turn them off from 10pm-6pm. It wasn’t that bad as it was pretty cool in the evenings and we just opened our windows if we were too cold. The hosts were super sweet and helpful. We did not have service with AT&T nor T-Mobile. We were about 5 mins from the North entrance of Yellowstone.

Cool spot! We enjoyed our time there with one major drawback — we work on the road so we need cell service. We came here specifically because other people said there was ATT reception, but there is NOT. We received a stray text every once in awhile, walking around the campground, but it’s not useful. Maybe a booster would help, but we don’t have one.

All that to say, it’s awesome as an “off the grid” place near the north side of Yellowstone, but it’s not a good option if you require AT&T reception.

There were full bars 10 minutes down the mountain in Gardiner.