## Overview

 Prune Creek Campground is located along the Bighorn Scenic Byway (U.S. Highway 14) near the Burgess Junction at an elevation of 7,700 feet. The Bighorn National Forest offers a wide variety of activities, including hiking, fishing, scenic driving and a number of historic sites. The administering organization is Gallatin Canyon Campgrounds; e-mail: gccampgrounds13@gmail.com
## Recreation

 Off-road vehicle trails, scenic jeep roads, hiking, fishing and canoeing are available in the surrounding area. Diverse hikes vary from loop trails to treks along creeks and over mountain peaks; many trails access the Cloud Peak Wilderness. Nearby Sibley Lake is open to non-motorized craft and offers an accessible fishing dock on the shoreline. Anglers fish for rainbow, brown and brook trout.
## Natural Features

 The campground is situated on the banks of the South Fork Tongue River in the Bighorn Mountains, where craggy granite peaks rise over 13,000 feet above sea level. A forest of lodgepole pines covers the area, creating excellent wildlife habitat. 
## Nearby Attractions

 Shell Falls Visitor Center, at the overlook of Shell Falls, is about 23 miles southwest. This center offers interpretive trails, scenic views, and educational displays about natural features such as flora and fauna and area history. The Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark is about 28 miles from the campground. This unique geoglyph signifies all creation, all races of people, birds, fish, animals, trees and stones. According to tribal beliefs, the circular shape of the wheel represents the earth, sun, moon, the cycles of life, seasons and day to night. Arrowhead Lodge, Bear Lodge and Elk View Inn are nearby, offering off-road vehicle rentals and fishing supplies, as well as dining options and general stores. 
## Charges & Cancellations

 Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This cancellation processing fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).

Prune Creek

Every time we passed this campground we saw empty sites. This came in handy on this holiday weekend. We grabbed a site and before we even filled out the forms the rest were taken. It’s nice to have found a campsite at late notice on a holiday but they did fill up. 

  

The campground has a couple loops. We ended up right next to the road. Consistent traffic became background noise if we didn’t pay attention to it. We would have preferred a quieter setting but at least we found a campsite. The campers in the other loop seemed louder and more active. One site had a bunch of dogs and a couple of sites had large groups. Our loop was quiet and restful.

  

The hosts keep the place clean. With all the rain we’ve had, the trail that links up to Sibley Lake trail was too muddy to hike. We walked up the hill away from the road where logging is being done. It led to a series of trails that seemed to lead to more logging. 

  

The highlight was finding a mother and baby moose grazing right through our campsite. The host told us that a moose killed a dog recently. I’m keeping a closer eye on ours now. 

  

We loved the moose coming into camp here! This is an ok campground but the closeness to the road wasn’t the best.

Moose!! Roadside camping in moose turf 

Sites near creek are the best.  Beware of moose that will charge you and trample you.

one good place

this campground is nice, its near an awesome fishing  stream and just down the he road is arrowhead lodge . the only downfall is it's right next to the highway 

nice campground 

this is a fantastic campground in the Bighorns. Beautiful scenery and incredibly picturesque. we have camped here for years as friends and with family and we love coming back anytime we can. it’s right on the south fork of the Tongue River and while the fishing is better on other rivers in the area it’s a great place to teach kids or just relax for the evening while you watch the Brookies jump! 


Old Fashioned Camping 

I got lucky here and scored site #18 which was very private and at the end of a lollipop loop. While this site is further away from the creek and closer to the road, it was still quieter than sites on the creek(which were all taken anyway). There is a little trickle of a creek nearby that did a nice job of drowning out the road noise in the evening. There was a nice little trail that went up the hill and overlooked the bigger Prune Creek and all of the people floating and tubing down the creek. If you want a site on the creek, the best ones seemed to be#6-9. My site had the usual picnic table and fire pit, and nice hammock trees. I did find it interesting that while the dumpsters were bear proofed, there were no bear boxes at every campsite. There were two bear boxes and both were next to the water pumps. The vault toilets were not especially clean, most likely due to the heavy use by creek floaters and tubers. While walking down to the creek I noticed that there was some dedicated parking for fishermen, which I guess means that there may be some people in the campground that are not camping.

Busy campground 

We have an 18 m/o that has survived 2 open heart surgeries and has more coming. So we want to take a camping trip we had been taking about for years. Prune creek had great open spaces by sites 2 &amp; 3, and we had 4moose come within about 20’ feet of our camp. We tent camp so having good space is important. 
Bring water and supplies, if your from a much lower elevation I would recommend maybe a aftermarket oxygen. You can get them on Amazon. 
This was a fantastic trip and plan enough fuel you can go explore and watch moose, elk and deer! 