Madison Campground

Camping inside the park is totally worth the trouble of reserving a site, and we especially loved Madison Campground. The campground is set at the confluence of the Firehole and Gibbon rivers that forms the Madison River. The bison are plentiful in the area, sometimes coming into the campground. The sites are fairly spacious and the campground has spots of shade from the Lodgepole Pine trees, but we were still able to use our suitcase solar panels pretty easily. The September nights were chilly (we dressed for winter to attend the evening Ranger Talks), but the days were warm and sunny.
Tips …

• Some of the sites can be a bit sloped, so bring plenty of extra leveling blocks in case you wind up on a little slope.
  
• Be sure to pack a faucet adapter for the smooth faucets in the campground loops.
  
• There is no need to scope out best sites at Madison, since the park staff assigns your spot upon arrival based on overall length of rig and truck. You may have to wait until your assigned spot is empty to be able to complete the check-in process. We arrived at 11:30 am and our site had just been vacated by the previous occupants.
• No checks are accepted — cash or credit card only.
  
• The dump station at the entrance has potable water (with a threaded hose end), that might be easier to use than the smooth non-threaded faucets in the campground loops.

Reservations must be made well in advance for this campground. We stayed here for a couple of nights then moved on to Canyon campground. There is no “Madison Village” with shops and restaurants so it’s a little quieter here than in the Canyon area. There is a small convenience store with ice and food and T-shirts and a small visitor center in an old ranger cabin. Madison is a great location close to Old Faithful and the geyser basins. Campsites are assigned by management and we fortunate to get a great site on an outer loop.

Campgrounds are clean and close to the river. We were also close to the bathrooms, which is nice. There's a dumb station at the entrance.

Slots are SMALL. If you have a 32 class A like us with a toad, they make you get TWO sites. Luckily it wasn't too crazy expensive.

Scenery is breathtaking, like most of the park.

Only fair warning, the rangers are REAL REAL sticklers. Don't fart too loud or you'll get a ticket.

Also, there is ZERO phone service anywhere except within a mile radius of the small towns (Canyon lodge, Old Faithful lodge and Yellowstone Lake Hotel). We a 6' antenna on the top of RV hooked up to the latest Weboost RV and still got zero signal (Verizon, Sprint and TM).

We moved to Madison after spending three days at Bridge Bay, planning to spend another three days here. Unfortunately some minor health issues forced us to shorten our stay to only one day. I was not expecting the park concessionaire to refund our other two nights fees, but when I explained the situation to the lady at the check in office, she very courteously gave us a refund. I was yet agin very pleasantly surprised by the professionalism and good customer service of the concessionaire.

As for the campground, this is another large (278 sites) Yellowstone campground with basic services. There are clean bathrooms with flush toilets and dishwashing sinks. Each campsite has a picnic table and fire grill. Bear boxes are located around the campground for those tent camping. Site quality can vary so bring some leveling blocks. We thought sites 188 thru 195 looked especially nice. They are mostly back-ins with no one behind you and had nice views.For most of the other sites, you are just in the lodgepole pine forest, which is pretty in its own right.

This campground is convenient to a lot of the thermal features of the park and only about 15 miles form the town of West Yellowstone if you need supplies. We had absolutely no AT7T signal here.

Madison is a large, reservation-only campground that is well located within Yellowstone to take in the major thermal basins from Norris through West Thumb, including the Old Faithful area. Other parts of the park are also within reach, depending on your tolerance for long drives.

Note that reservations can be made over a year in advance – Xanterra opens reservations for the following summer season during the current summer season. The largest site size that can be reserved is “up to 40 feet” which includes the complete rig. However, we are 46 feet long when fully hitched and we would have fit into virtually all the pull-throughs we saw. I wouldn’t take the chance of reserving a 30 foot site for our rig, but typical rigs should not be deterred by the supposed 40 foot limit.

The campground is located alongside the lovely Madison River, which appears to be very popular with trout fishermen. Since it does not have a major activity center nearby (no hotel, gas station, etc.) the campground is very serene and traffic in the area is limited to the drivers heading in and out of the west entrance. We stayed here the week of Labor Day and found the campground to be well-managed, clean, and generally quiet. (There’s someone with a contractor generator in every crowd, but generators are limited to 8 am to 8 pm.)

Our site was perfectly level and nicely paved. Separation between sites is OK but not great -- there’s no avoiding the fact that this is a large campground with hundreds of sites packed into a relatively small area. It’s comparable to other national park campgrounds we have visited. The trees throughout the campground are nice for atmosphere but make solar generation very hit-or-miss. Most sites seem to have some area within the site that would work for placing a portable panel, but not all, and of course sites are assigned by the campground management so campers can’t really control this. Our site, A26, had perfect open sky toward the west so we had ample solar throughout our stay.

The campground has flush toilets but no showers. Potable water is available at spigots throughout the campground, and there is a dump station with multiple lanes. There is a small seasonal shop on site that sells snacks and essentials. There is also a ranger-staffed information station within walking distance of the campground that is well worth visiting to get maps and park information, like road construction advisories.

We had no cell service at all on AT&T. Service ends a few miles east of West Yellowstone after entering the west entrance. There are a few pockets of service at the major visitor centers like Old Faithful and Grant Village, but service was totally clogged and virtually useless during busy times of day.

We were thwarted by this campground and just wanted to share our experience so that others don't get burned in the same way. We were aware that this was one of the Yellowstone campgrounds that was reservable in advance. However, while looking at the NPS Yellowstone site in the days leading up to our arrival in Yellowstone, we got the impression that there were some first come first served spots, mostly because the Yellowstone site shows a "time filled" for each campground. Madison's campground showed, on average, 6:45 AM time filled on the chart. Thus, we arrived at the campground at 5:30 to be first in line, only to have to wait until 7 AM to find out that the time filled information on the NPS website is really misleading, and there was really nothing available at Madison that would fit the bill. The attendant said they rarely have tent sites that open up in that way, but basically never have RV/Camper sites available without a reservation.

The popular Madison Campground was very clean and nice. Our spot was on the edge of the campground and had a good amount of privacy, I would say most sites however don’t offer that much as they are fairly close together.

The check in was VERY busy and despite dealing with tons of people, the workers were very pleasant and extremely helpful.

The bathroom/restrooms were heated (a huge welcome as we got about 8 inches of snow) and were fairly clean.

The neighbors were loud into the night and from what I could tell a lot of campers here were maybe new to the game. Not the sites fault however, a beautiful place, but far from remote and less tranquil than we had hoped.

Unfortunately you can't reserve a site ahead of time, otherwise I'd tell you to get site 183. It was huge! Check-in took about 15 minutes. They have an on-demand ice vending machine. That's it for things to purchase. No showers, laundry or store. They do have a dump station. If you need water, spigots in the CG don't have threads so you might want to fill up at the dump station on your way in.

Most of the loops look identical. They each have about 15-20 sites. They're close to the road but I didn't notice road noise being annoying. Our campsite was relatively flat. Nice bathrooms, but old. You can walk to the river where you can see lots of elk. You can swim and fish here as well. Junior Ranger station and amphitheatre within walking distance.

Firehole Falls is a great place to go for a swim and it's only about 5 minutes away.

Boiling River swimming hole (hot spring mixing with cold river) in Gardiner was one of our favorite things in all of Yellowstone.