Dead Indian Campground

Small campground. Small rigs only. Lots of mosquitoes. No water or power. River runs in middle. Has park host. Bathrooms clean.

So glad to find this great little campsite on our way to Yellowstone! We like to camp away from crowds & we were the only campers at this sweet little 10 site campground. It is free national forest camping with a vault toilet. There is a campground host. It us near a stream & of course, beautiful views at the campsite and on the way there.

A local couple told me that we should check out this campground. They said to take your time and enjoy the Chief Joseph scenic highway drive with all of its overlooks. The scenery driving up out of Cody is unique and inspiring. We stopped halfway down the highway at Dead Indian Campground and enjoy the scenery from camp. 

The campground is split on two sides of the creek. The host is on the Cody side along with 5 sites. The garbage bin is also over there. We chose to stay in site 10 which is one of the other 5 across the creek. You take the main highway over the creek and then into this area. This site is large and has a short trail that leads right to the creek. We enjoyed the short walk on the campground road the continues past our site. We found a clear view of the powerful creek and a beautiful skyline. One site is a secluded walk-in for tenters. There are clean vault toilets on each side. Bring in your own water or purify some from the creek. The vegetation is a bit tall in the sites on this side. Site 10 was great but the others looked less inviting. 

There is a hiking trail just down the road in each direction. One leads into the canyon and the other into the meadows. The trail into the canyon is the route that Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce used to avoid a trap by the military. Just as we were about to hike the thunderstorm rolled in. Thus we can only say that the start of the trail was good especially with the history adding value. 

This year it’s cool but the host said it’s normally hot. She said all the green grass is usually yellow. 

This is a nice stop along a beautiful scenic drive. This is grizzly territory so take appropriate precautions.