Best Tent Camping near Silver Gate, MT

Campground is in middle of park so it’s not a quick drive in but the drive is beautiful! The campground is easily laid out and clean and fire rings at each spot. Bear boxes located throughout campsite area you may have to share with your neighbor. Wake up and go for a walk and you will see a lot of wildlife in campgrounds. The staff at checkin is friendly. There is a marina if you want to rent a boat or look to launch your own. RV dump station and water refill are conventionally located at exit. The park has a 8pm-8am quiet hours (no generators) which is fine as it dropped to 40 at night so perfect for RV and camping.

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.

Eagle Creek campground is a nice small 16 site campground a few miles above Gardiner Montana and only a few minutes from the Yellowstone entrance.  Getting to the campground requires a steep 2 mile drive which the road recommends 4 wheel drive for to help with the incline and to prevent washboard.  Sites sit in a grassy open area with willows and other small trees and bushes around the edge.  Small creek runs along the campground.  Site #1 would the site to get it you can, out of view from the rest of camp and has two picnic tables.  The site has a vault toilet.  All sites have a metal fire ring and picnic table. Bear proof food lockers for food storage at most sites.  No water or trash service.  I filtered water from the creek.  Their is a horse Corral adjacent to campground.  Campground was nice and quiet at night with great view of the night sky.  No cell service.

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!

We entered Yellowstone through the Northeast from Silver Gate Montana to avoid traffic and locate a smaller campground. Pebble Creek was great for tent camping. There are about 30 sites at this location which is best suited for tent campers or those traveling with a small camper or van. The have the toilets and fire pits. They don’t take reservations at this site. You need to be here early to get a site. The wildlife is the area is amazing. We saw plenty of bears and bison everywhere. Yellowstone did not disappoint. The summer crowds were overwhelming in some of the more popular area. I would like to come in the off-season and do some more hikes.