Red Cliff Campground

Sites are $24/night $12/night with senior/access pass. There is an additional $8/night charge if you get a site with electric.

This campground is in the Gallatin National Forest and located just outside of Big Sky. Reservations are made through recreation.gov If you have the senior or access America the Beautiful Pass you do qualify for 50% off camping fees. This campground charges a facility use tax, lodging tax and $8.00 reservation fee. There is a 16 day camping limit here. They did offer FCFS sites and allowed people to pay with the envelopes if sites did not have reservations. That being said, there were times that the “campground full” sign was at the entrance of the park. Some of those times sites say empty and did not have a tag with a reservation for that date. The lesson is: never trust a campground full sign at these parks. Always double check with the host and see if there actually is availability.

The campground is located off HWY 191 and you can definitely hear the traffic. When you turn onto the campground road you can make a quick right to the picnic area if you want to disconnect your toad. There are both one way and two way roads in the campground. The two way roads are not very wide, I doubt two larger RVs could pass each other. In addition, to get into some of the sites it makes more sense to go backwards on the one way loop. To get to the campground you need to cross the bridge over the Gallatin River. There is a loop that goes to the right that has electric (30 AMP) and one to the left that is dry camping. There is only one pull through site, 54, that is parallel to the road and directly across from a bathroom. There are water spigots and vault toilets that are located within the campground. The only threaded water spigot was located near the exit by the dumpsters. Be aware that there is no dump station.

The road within the campground is gravel and there are some potholes. The hosts were actually filling the potholes the day after I arrived. The campsites themselves are gravel with grass, wildflowers and mature trees. Each site has a picnic table, fire ring, and food storage box. The grass was trimmed in the immediate area around the sites. The sites are spaced decently and some have more privacy than others. Some campsites are backed up to the Gallatin River, but that also means it’s closer to the highway. Sites 1-37 along the are on the same level as the river. The traffic noise seems less pronounced as you hear more of the river. To get to sites 38-63 you go up a a small hill and that loop is on a bit of a hill. People camped on river front sites in this loop have trails that lead from their campsite down to the river.

Site 60 was plenty long enough for our 37 foot class A and Honda CRV. In fact, we didn’t even back all the way into the site and still had room to park the car in front. The site was pretty level. There were trees towards the back of the site, but not low hanging.

There are bear proof trash cans located in the campground. The recycling bins were all blocked off.

There was ZERO Verizon signal at this campground. Basically had no Verizon signal most of the way from West Yellowstone to the campground. Drove approximately 5 miles towards Big Sky and had 2/3 bars LTE. It was OK to text and search the internet. Did notice multiple campsites with Starlink set up.

Stayed here for 3 nights while we explored Yellowstone and Big Sky. If you don’t mind the 35 min jaunt to West Yellowstone it’s not bad. Cheap for the price to have electricity. Water is easy enough to get as a couple spigots are available. Also they do a good job with trash and clean pit toilets. However, the lack of a dump site anywhere close is a big inconvenience. Some people complained of the road noise. Honestly the river is so loud I didn’t hear it. Plus the scenery is pretty good. Close to big sky so you can have access to stores and everything you need.

We come from the Netherlands. Campendium is very helpfull for us. So we want to help others. (Sorry if my english is not perfect).
We were here on 21 septemer 2022.
What a nice campground! Lots of trees, enough privacy. The sounds of the river, so no problem with the sound of the road.
At the end of the campground you can walk along the river. But there are also posibilities to hike in the mountains. There is a board with information about the posibilities to hike in the mountains.

We did not have Electricity and paid $ 20,- cash. With Electricity you pay $ 28,-.
Seems less suitable for very long campers (I think max 35 feeth)

We did not made a reservation, lucky there was place enough.
There is no internet possible!!

NB: this campsite closes on September 25, the road will then probably be closed with a fence (see photo collage)

Our traveling squad (3 campers) arrived on the 4th of July with advance reservations in hand. We had sites: 010, 020, 039. Site 039 was the only non-standard non-electric one and the farthest one away from the other two. My fellow campers also complained that there were lots of mosquitoes and ticks at their site. We had site 010 (standard electric) and no problems with either. Our site was along the river and OMG- was it perfect! Backing into our site was a bit challenging because it was more wide than long. Thankfully, our neighbor came up to help us back into it. Since it was more wide than long, we parked our vehicle next to our camper. It was tight, but we managed. Having electricity helped a lot. I walked through the other sites along the river and I have to say, site 010 had the best access to the river. It’s a clean and easy paved walk to the river while the other sites, you have to walk through some tall grass to get to the river.

I’m just sad I didn’t take as many pictures here but I took a ton of videos! You can see them on my Instagram: @earlyrisersgang

We don't know how to work the recreation.gov website, so we ended up paying the fee four times for our twelve day stay. My advice is to book the weekdays and then start asking the camp host (Jenny is the boss of the reservations) a couple days out from the weekend for available sites. She is OCD about not opening up sites of no shows, though they are supposed to forfeit their reservation if they aren't there by the second day. She will give you a site if you keep bugging her because there are plenty of no shows. I think there is a three day first come first serve rule, so she should know by Thursday? Our nephew works in Big Sky so we were trying to piece together two weeks. Anyway, it's an OK campground, though the heavy truck traffic that starts pretty early woke us up every day. There's rock climbing above site 18 and also just out the trail 100 yards-don't go straight up the hill, there's a decent trail just down Elkhorn trail. Elkhorn trail itself is a nice trail, nothing spectacular. Ouzel Falls at Big Sky is spectacular. Lava Falls is a pretty stiff uphill for three miles to a beautiful lake. YNP was closed due to flooding, so we also hiked Teepee Creek and Albino Lake, which were OK hikes. The Grizzly Loop at Porcupine Trail was good (the ford on Porcupine was too deep to wade during our hike). Big Sky is super expensive. The most reasonable eating options were the Wrap Shack, Blue Moon Bakery, and the Mexican food bus by ACE Hardware. I ran shuttle for hubby to Bike the South Fork Trail from the resort ski lift area. He said it was really good. The electric sites on the south end seemed to have more shade. The north end had more solar. We didn't have cell service on either Verizon or T-Mobile. Our nephew was getting a little AT&T on the north end. Park by the Warren Miller auditorium/high school/library for fast wifi service. The BSBB was the fastest, though if school is in session, that's the student wifi. Another open wifi was "basketball." The library is only open in the afternoons, who would give you their password during the school year. It was about 45 minutes to West Yellowstone. There's limited free camping out Taylor Fork and Moose Creek.

Another amazing place in Montana! All the feels!!! Great access to the river for kids to play and fishing, rafting. Elkhorn Trailhead Hiking right within Red Cliff Campground, your walking alongside the river trail. A cave at the entrance, where the kids found some gems (super steep to get up to) the campground was Super close to the town of Big Sky, 7 minutes to cell service;) (the ONLY negative but we made do)

We arrived without reservations at 2pm for FCFS and scored a site on the riverfront for 4 days (site 5) we drove into town multiple times for Blue Moon Bakery, their cheese pizza, baked goods and plain bagels are dynamite! We meet great new campsite friends and decided to go horseback riding at Jake’s for the valley views, we highly recommend them as well. We had to move sites but it was even better at site 10, river views, access, power and close to vault.

Big Sky will forever be remembered as one of our all time favs during our FT journey @arrowstreamlife

We were in the south loop with electricity. The site was very large right on the river. The only water available was close to the trash disposal area so you need to fill up the fresh tank when you arrive. The campground hosts were very active and nice. Some road noise during the day but very quiet in the late evening and night.
There were a lot of wildflowers blooming when we were there.

Looking for a place to rock climb and golf during down time while exploring Yellowstone. This place definitely delivered!

The camp hosts were kind, and it was nice that there were 2 different hosts who communicated well. Potable water onsite was nice since none of the sites have water or sewer hookups, just electric. We stayed at a spot right on the water and the dogs loved it.

Our annual America The Beautiful Pass got us $10 off/night, totally worth it. rock climbing within the campground, and a handful of crags within 30 minutes. a lot of private golf courses, but found a few public ones. Drive to West Yellowstone is about an hour (also free entry with the pass) and it was a beautiful commute.