SD, MT, WY camping advice

Hey all, I'm an East coaster planning a month long trip out west and looking for some advice and experience regarding the area. Right now the arrangement is 2 trucks and 3 people total. We are leaving from southeast PA. Glacier NP is the main attraction, but since we'll be all the way out there we figured why not see Teton and Yellowstone, too.

As i look more into the Glacier area, I am starting to think a month is not long enough to see these 3 parks/areas. At this point we are looking at (3) 10 hour days of driving to get to the black hills, where I'd also like to spend some time. So call it 6 days to actually get to Glacier and another 6 to get home and not hate life while doing it.

I don't think 18 days is enough for the 3 park areas. We'd like to do some 2-3 day backpacking trips and general exploration, softroading, maybe kayaking, rent ATV, etc. My friend wants to drive the Morrison jeep trail. Making 5 point turns for a few hours doesn't sound that fun to me.

Can anyone offer some advice or experience for the area? We will likely be in Flathead NF most of the time since NP`s require so much planning with permits, etc. We are all experienced east coast campers but none of us have camped in brownie country before and are not familiar with weather patterns or terrain out there. We are looking at going in June, when Glacier starts to open up and to avoid intense heat.

Also, if there are any attractions between MT and PA, besides the black hills, it would be good to keep break up the driving and not have to sleep in Wal mart parking lots.

 

Custer SP in SD is better than Yellowstone in my opinion. I'd go thru there if you have time.

 

I second this

 

Thanks I will look into it. Maybe hit that one on the way back home. I have been finding that state parks don't get nearly the exposure of national parks and forests but are often better places to be

 

Monitor the fire/smoke forecasts - last year we went to Glacier and it was barely visible due to all the smoke.

Stay safe out there.

 

When visiting Badlands NP, the Sage Creek campground was pretty cool with Bison roaming through at times. Some nice BLM spots just outside the Park as well. Little Bighorn battlefield was worth a visit as was Mt Rushmore.

 

You mention traveling in June, so is this for next year? Anyway, a couple of random notes, as we just got back from a trip from CA to WI and back and camped the whole way, as well as visited Glacier and Yellowstone a few years back, also camping. First, these areas are crowded in summer. We snagged a few state/county campgrounds as well as a handful of legal dispersed NF and state forest (Minnesota) sites, but made reservations in the more popular locations and needed them. This summer Glacier is requiring “tickets” to even enter the Park; not sure what that entails as we didn’t go in this time, but saw the signs.

We showed up at Custer State Park and were able to get same day reservations at Center Lake campground. You have to pay the park admission fee and then use a dedicated landline at the campground to reserve a site (no cell service). This process was painful. Even if a site is unoccupied it may have been reserved by someone who hasn’t showed up yet; even though there is a host they don’t tag the reserved sites. So if you stay there, make a list of sites you like and see if you can get one. We were given a site that was totally unacceptable and had to call back to change it which was even more painful than the original call. I’ve camped all over the country for decades and never had such a complex process. I’d recommend camping outside the park in the Badlands NF just to avoid that hassle. In ND, we stayed at the Buffalo Gap (first come/first served) NF campsite and just drove through the adjacent TR National Park due to heat/bugs/smoke but the wildlife sightings were amazing. We did get up at 5AM to ride 20 miles of the Buffalo Gap Trail before it got hot. Very nice.

Further east, we found dispersed camping in (or maybe near?, maps and signs weren’t clear) the Mississippi Headwaters State Forest in MN, quiet and several miles of easy dirt off a state or county road. Stayed at a private campground (Spirit Mountain) just outside Duluth which had AMAZING trail (hike, bike, not motorized) access plus good beer in town.

Aside from crowds, be flexible in summer with fire restrictions, possible closures, and smoke. I’ve camped a fair amount in bear country and again, be flexible but use the same precautions you’d use for black bears and follow regulations for grizzlies. Some campgrounds are for hard-sided vehicles only. If you’re backpacking use a bear canister; not sure about MT/WY but in Yosemite just hanging food or even using an uncertified canister is not allowed. You can rent the canisters, ditto bear spray. But once you get the feel for the area, finding camping is rarely an issue in the West with its extensive NF and BLM lands. Have fun!

 

Lots of great advice, think you. It is for next year. June seems like the time when Glacier starts to open up and the nights won't be too cold and the days not too hot. It looks like pretty sever temp swings between day at night just in West Glacier, much more so at higher elevation I'm sure.

Doing anything in a National Park sounds like a real pain. I've only been to Rocky Mt. NP and that was in 2017 and just for a day trip. No issues at that time but trying to do anything over night seems like a real hassle inside of a NP.

 

Yeah, I have lived my entire life within 4 hours of Yosemite but rarely go, especially now that you have to get a reservation just to drive through the park to the good stuff on the east side. I’m sure there are exceptions; Death Valley is wide open with hundreds of miles of legal “off road” (dirt roads; off-roading is prohibited, and even bikes can’t use trails, only hikers, but some of DV’s roads are pretty rough) and parts of Canyonlands are similar, though with more permits required for camping than DV.