Best Tent Camping near Roscoe, MT

Snowbank is an excellent off-the-grid semi-developed and hosted FS campground.  Spacious and private sites better for small RVs, trailers, and all tents.  Clean vault toilets, bear-proof storage boxes, and plenty of community water spigots.  Decent picnic tables and fire rings at each site.  No hookups to my knowledge.  The campground is on recreation.gov and sites are reservable.  Access to a great trail and FS road from campground, other hiking nearby.  Also, a 20 minute drive to Chico Hot Springs Resort and Day Spa (food, bar, soaking).  Expect to see wildlife, and this is grizzly country so proper food storage and best practices are required by law.  No cell service.  Excellent spot before or after visiting Yellowstone.

A well named campground as the grizzly bear activities in the campground precluded us actually spending the night in the campground in July of 2015. The ranger actually closed the campground down as we were pulling up, saying poor camper habits with food storage had attracted a sow and cub to the campground. He was going to set up a live trap and hopefully move them to a new home territory. That said, we were able to take a quick look at the campground before being shooed out. Nice, clean, about 20 sites not too close to each other with picnic tables, fire rings, food storage boxes, and vault toilets. We were able to hike around the outside edge of the campground (note the picture of the fresh bear print in the mud) to get to the Claw Lake Trail, an 8 miler that winds up over 9,000 feet past several beautiful named and unnamed lakes, including Claw Lake and Beauty Lake. Carry bear spray and mosquito spray!!

Pebble Creek was our favorite campground in Yellowstone National Park. A less crowded area of the park, probably why we loved it! 27 sites and all are available first come first serve- no reservations! The location and lack of reservations make this a quiet, peaceful campground. It sits at 6900 feet elevation. All sites have a table, fire ring, and food storage locker- it is bear country! There are vault toilets and seasonally there is potable drinking water. Our first night there we stayed in one of the"pull out sites" on the west side of the campground. It was ok, however they are not true pull outs, you just park on the side of the park road.... not bad considering the low use of this campground. On our second night we scored a spot on the east side right across from Pebble Creek.... it was perfect! We enjoyed drinks in our chairs at the creekside and a beautiful night listening to the peaceful sounds of the creek. It appears they have changed the site numbers since we visited to add some tent sites, so do not pay attention to the site markers in our old nostalgic photos!

Back country site 2S2 sits on the southern edge of the Slough creek valley just south of the main trail.  A brief hike along the access trail gets you to the site.  This site sits in a group of trees which makes for a nice location out of the sun and with some wind protection, but the trade off is limited views of the valley, and the view of the valley are the best part about hiking this part of the park.  Site has an excellent water source right next to the tent and cooking areas.  The site has several good flat locations for your tents.  While the cook/food area has a bear pole for hanging your food you will not need to use it as the camp has a bear locker for food/gear storage.  The bear locker also gives you a great flat cooking area that doesn't require bending over your campstove.  Fires are allowed when not restricted.  Site is limited to 6 people for a max stay of 3 nights.  Don't be surprised to find bison very near your camp as they rang through the valley.

Crazy Creek Campground is a nice wooded campground near the North East entrance to Yellowstone National Park.  Crazy Creek is also the last developed campground as you head to the park that allows for tent camping,  from here to the entrance the campgrounds allow only hard sided camping units due to bear activity. 

Crazy Creek campground is a 16 unit campground.  Each site has plenty of trees which was great as it allowed my to use my hammock.  Each site has a picnic table and metal fire ring and plenty of room for your tent.  Campground has a vault toilet.  No water is available.  Campground is not ADA accessible.  Bear storage lockers are available as food must be stored in your car or one of the lockers.  Dumpster is available for your trash.  Sites are just $10 a night, but they fill up fast.  A great feature of this campground is the Crazy Creek trail.  A trail from the campground takes you across the highway to the trail,  a very short hike brings you to Crazy Creek falls.