We made the final decision not to go up to the Canadian Rockies. We just didn’t think we could take the time to do justice to that area. We turned south so we guess this is the top of our north/south loop this year. We planned to take two days to drive from Glacier to Yellowstone, but instead it turned into three. Near the end of the first day, we had to pull a grade of a few miles on the freeway. The diagnostic monitor on the dash flashed something about fuel pressure on the screen. The next exit on the freeway was the one we were taking anyway. There was a truck repair shop right at the exit and lo and behold there was a campground about 50 yards down the road as well so it was an easy call just to stop and stay the night only about 60 miles from our planned destination.
Gary checked a few things and concluded that the fuel filters needed to be changed again. We apparently still aren’t completely rid of the infected fuel we had back in December. The next morning Gary walked over to the truck repair only to find that the shop was out of business, but as further luck would have it there was another car repair shop about 100 yards down the road and they said they could change the filters for us and did so right away. And we didn’t have any further problems after the change.
We got close to Yellowstone on the second day, but stayed a ways up the road as we wanted to get an early start as we were targeting a National Forest Campground near the west entrance that doesn’t take reservations – it is first come first served. We had already checked and all the other close campgrounds were full. We arrived at the campground at 9 AM, but after making two laps through the campground, it became clear that we weren’t going to get a spot. We stopped at the entrance and called all the local campgrounds again – no cancellations, no vacancies. What were we going to do? Here we were in West Yellowstone with no camp site and no prospect of one. We had had great success at obtaining most all our campgrounds without reservations but it looked like this time we had been burned.
We had seen some campgrounds on the road into West Yellowstone so we decided just to drive back up the road until we found something further from the park than we planned. The first two campgrounds we stopped at were completely full and we were afraid we might not find anything before where had camped the night before, 75 miles up the road. But at the next stop, we hit the jackpot. It was a fish camp that had one single spot open only because someone had left early. We leaped at it and secured a full hookup site for $30 a night, about half the rate of the private campgrounds in West Yellowstone. It is 30 miles to the west gate, but the great rate will easily offset the additional driving. The campground is right on the Madison River apparently one of the finest areas of trout fishing in the country. We might even try our luck at fishing while we are here. http://slideinn.com/blog/
I'm afraid to try showing up without reservations as my three female traveling companions would flog me if we had no spot.. Would you mind telling me the route you took between Glacier and Yellowstone as we will be making the trip soon.
ReplyDeleteYour route will depend on where you are staying relative to the two parks. We were on the east side of Glacier at Johnson's of St Mary as Waterton is far more accessible from the east of Glacier than the west. In Yellowstone, we are staying in the West Yellowstone area. For that pairing we went a bit north from St Mary on 86 and took 464 down to Browning (the campground told us to avoid 86 between St Mary and Browning). From Browning we took 89 south to 287 south to I15 south to 69 south to I90 east to 287 south (287 south out of Helena would probably have worked a bit better on that last stretch), then on down to West Yellowstone. We had 10 miles of construction gravel somewhere in the stretch north of Helena, but otherwise the route was fine.
DeleteGuys, you should look at some CGs south of West Yellowstone on Rt. 20 just into Idaho.
ReplyDeleteWe are currently at http://valleyviewrv.com/ (Valley View RV) and with a weekly rate it works out to $28 and change per day. Plus, the park is only 13 miles west of West Yellowstone.
Just a thought.
Now you tell us. LOL. But we didn't ever check on Idaho campgrounds in that area and we should have. We have settled in well here at the fish camp and all the fishermen have been very friendly. Have discovered the owner here is a real luminary of fly fishing having, among other things, hosted a fly fishing program on the the Outdoor Living Newtwork.
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