Best Tent Camping near Frannie, WY

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!!

Limit:  14 days

June 1 - October 1

Sites:  15 single accessible 

Fee:  $17.00 per night, additional vehicle fee $9.00

Reservations:  877-444-6777 or recreation.gov

In season there is potable water, trash service, out of season NO water, NO trash.  Pack it in Pack it out, Host on site.  Picnic table, fire ring, lantern post, ped grill, pit toilets.  The views are amazing with the beautiful mountains for the back drop.  Sites are dirt and short and close together.  Some shade and some sun.  There is even a place to off load 4 wheeler out of back of truck without ramps.

LNT

BTYFI

Travel safe

We came into this campground on a Wednesday and picked the best of three open sites. There were a lot of reserved sites, but they were mostly coming in on Friday.

The site was beautiful and very close to the river (the sound was great). The vault toilets were very clean. The water was available through a easy to use hand pump. The camp hosts had firewood for $5.00 per bundle.

We were tent camping and the site had a large pad, a place for my hammock, a nice wooden picnic table, and a GREAT fire ring. The sites were all very far apart from each other.

This is one of the most picturesque places to camp. Surrounded by mountains and right on the Shoshone River, this is a bit of Heaven on earth.

There is only one flush toilet/(paid) shower facility in the North Fork campground (none in Lake Side), but there are accessible vault toilets within walking distance from anywhere. The tent sites have HUGE tent pads, plenty of room for our 9x12 cabin tent and solar panels. All sites have large concrete picnic tables and the tent sites have privacy walls which are separate to the tent pads. And the tent sites are spaced very far apart, so you never feel cramped.

Cody, WY is pretty close if you need to stock up on supplies and Yellowstone is just 44 miles down the road.

We had wanted to get a site at the north fork, but ended up with a no hookup site at the lakeshore campground as that is what was available.  Note of caution, it can get very windy here, with strong gusts.  Our staked canopy actually flew off while my wife and kids were relaxing in it and almost flew into the lake.  Staking fail in me, but please be prepared.  There isn't a ton of shade or privacy, but the sites are spaced well enough.  Primitive vault toilets, not water.  Being down by the water was very nice, and the night sky was full of stars.  We used this as a base camp for Yellowstone; also be warned the east entrance road is quite windy, and it will take an hour or so to get where you want in the park depending on traffic.  This camp is located close to Cody, so supplies and a good meal (BBQ, prime rib buffets etc) are minutes away.  The Buffalo Bill Dam visitors center is actually quite well done and worth a pit stop.