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Best Camping In Grand Teton National Park

Where Can I Camp In Driggs

THE BEST CAMPGROUND IN WYOMING || GROS VENTRE CAMPGROUND || GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK

Teton Canyon Campground

Showers
Teepee Tents

Thought wed throw something completely different into the mix, how about spending the night in a teepee? Enjoy a unique and quirky accommodation for the night along with socialising with other teepee visitors at the campsite.

The rooms are circled around the large common room and iconic fireplace so its a great chance to meet other campers if youre a solo traveller or a couple. As an added bonus, rooms are pretty cheap!

Grand Teton National Park Camping Has Proven To Be Beyond The Expectations Of Those Who Come Here For The First Time To Enjoy The Spectacular Scenery And Premiere Outdoor Recreation

Bringing your tent or a full-sized RV is never a problem when visiting Grand Teton.

  • RV Parks Grand Teton RV Parks offer much in the way of amenities and provide ample facilities for all. A few campgrounds within the park welcome RVs. Also find a number of full service RV parks in Jackson, Wyoming and other gateway communities.
  • Public CampingThe Grand Teton camping has been shown to please visitors from all over, with many facilities to make your stay the best. Discover campgrounds within Grand Teton National Park as well as public camping areas in nearby national forests and wilderness areas.

Winter Camping In Grand Teton National Park

Although winter weather isharsh , winter camping is allowed in GrandTeton National Park.

Camping in the backcountry is allowed year-round, includingwinter, but you must first obtain a backcountry permit. None of the designatedcampgrounds are open in the winter, although the parking lot near the ColterBay Visitor Center is open for primitive RV and car camping during the winterfor $5 per night.

If youre planning a winter camping trip to Grand Teton, weencourage you to check out our guide tocamping in the winter and guide to wintercamping gear.

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How Much Time Do You Need For Your Visit

If you just want to discover the Teton chain and see the different viewpoints on the lake including a short walk, a whole day will be enough. If you enjoy nature and wish to hike, at least two days to enjoy everything. However, keep in mind that the hikes are many with varying durations. Therefore, consider your program. If you want to see the wildlife, be present at dawn and at dusk to maximize your chances. Therefore, the least you can do at the Grand Teton National Park is spending a night.

Natural Setting + Great Amenities At Signal Mountain

Camping At Grand Teton National Park

One of the main reasons we loved Signal Mountain Campground is that it gave us a fantastic camping experience in the Grand Teton National Park, but it also had some modern & resort-like amenities.

There is the campground, which has a very natural setting, but is quite well kept. The sites are intimate, but there are trees surrounding you so it still feels quite peaceful. There are bathrooms with running water, and up at the front entrance there are showers and a place to do laundry. There is also a fantastic general store that has just about everything you need including fresh sandwiches, a beer fridgeand a tasty coffee bar! Better yet, the general store has an outdoor patio with fast WI-FI .

Being that Signal Mountain is also a lodge with rooms and cabins available to non-campers, there were also a couple restaurants on-site that have beautiful views out over the lake. Deadmans Bar is open until midnight & they are famous for their mountain of nachos and margaritas.

Theres also marina onsite where you can rent kayaks, canoes, and motorboats. The resort also offers guided fishing and rafting tours too. Theres a couple gift shops on the property as well as a gas station which is super convenient so you dont have to go into town to fill up. There is also a boat launch if you have your own boat, and a couple of great picnic and swimming areas!

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Finding A Campground Near The Grand Teton National Park & Jackson Hole Wyoming

The great thing about RV Travel is that you can just kinda roll with it, and not always have to plan every detail out. So we didnt have a reservation or any kind of big plans for this trip. We just wanted to get away! Even though it was a holiday weekend, we figured that arriving on a weekday might help us land a spot somewhere at a forest service or national park campground in the area.

We briefly considered staying at an RV park, and there are a few in the area, such as Virginian Lodge Campground and even Jackson Hole Campground. However, most of these were full due to the holiday and the prices were significantly high .

Honestly, we didnt even feel like the RV parks would be worth it compared to the scenery of the area anyway. We wanted to camp in the wilderness!

We used the website www.freecampsites.net to search for some free or low cost campgrounds in the area. We found a few online, but didnt have much luck finding them in person when we arrived. So we decided to go with our trustyAll Stays app which has been one of our best RV apps yet .

Using the app, we searched out a number of different areas for camping near Grand Teton National Park. A few of them looked appealing to us, such as:

Amazing Backpacking Trips In Grand Teton National Park

Explore the best of Grand Teton National Park’s wilderness.

By:The Outbound Collective+ Save to a List

Grand Teton National Park is one of the best parks in the world to visit if youre an avid backpacker. One might even call it a backpackers heaven. With a plethora of stunning alpine terrain, wildlife, and wildflowers, these five backpacking trips are adventures you wont want to miss.

For the perfect place to get a little R& R after your backpacking adventure, we recommend staying at Togwotee Mountain Lodge. Just outside of the park, away from the crowds, this lodge is a beautiful place to refuel with delicious food, sleep in comfort, and wake up in a prime location for more adventures.

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Watch The Annual Elk Rut

Perhaps one of the most magical wildlife displays in Grand Teton National Park, the annual elk rut is a beautiful natural event that occurs every fall. During the rut, bull elk will bugle to attract mates. Often, 2 bull elk will fight over their harems, leading to an exciting show of the power of these majestic animals.

Grand Teton is one of the best places in the country to see these animals in action. To see the elk rut, get up well before dawn and hike into a meadow near the base of the mountains where the elk like to congregate.

Taggart Lake is a particularly nice spot to check out if youre looking to catch sight of the elk rut as you can often hear the elk bugling from the parking lot.

Visit The Town Of Moose

Top 5 Tips For Camping at YellowStone / Grand Tetons National Park

The small town of Moose is actually located within the park boundaries, which makes it a unique place to spend a spring afternoon. Moose is home to a post office, visitors center, restaurant, and a handful of shops, for you to check out.

The town is also a great place to start a rafting trip down the Snake River, particularly during the high water that comes with the spring snow melt. Alternatively, you could try a guided fly fishing trip near Moose if youre interested in perfecting your casting technique.

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Grand Teton National Park Campgrounds & Rv Parks

Opening dates for all campgrounds are weather-dependent. Remember that now campground reservations are taken six months in advance of your desired vacation dates at recreation.gov.

Phone: Details: 25 miles north of Moose, with 335 sites, 11 group sites, 13 electric hookup sites, trailer dump station, showers and laundry nearby. Fills in the afternoon, if at all. Colter Bay is a wooded campground with larger sites and easier access if you are traveling with a camper, trailer, or RV. Close to Jackson Lake with many nearby activities.

Phone: Details: 11.5 miles south and east of Moose, with more than 300 sites, 5 groups sites, 36 electric hookup sites, and a trailer dump station. The campground lies along the Gros Ventre River with a mix of sites in sagebrush, beneath cottonwoods and adjacent to/or a short distance from, the river.

Open: mid-June to early-SeptemberPhone: 1-800-672-6012Details: At the north end of Grand Teton National Park, about 32 miles north of Moose and has 60 sites. A less heavily developed campground with sites in the spruce and fir forest. One side of the campground is adjacent to and slightly above Jackson Lake. Vehicle size limited to 30 feet.

Winter Camping at Colter BayPrimitive winter camping is allowed in the plowed parking lot adjacent to the Colter Bay Visitor Center for $5 per night from December 1 to April 15. Camp on the snow covering the parking lot. Pay at the self-pay station by the restroom.

Hiking Near Jenny Lake Campground In Grand Teton National Park

Jenny Lake Campground is pretty centrally located within Grand Teton National Park, so if you want to do some exploring, youre not far from some incredible sites. One of the other reasons we love Jenny Lake Campground is that there are some great trails nearby that you can access without having to get into your car. The trails around Jenny Lake are basically part of the same network, so you can mix and match depending on your time frame and ability level.

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History Of The Grand Teton National Park National Park

The amazing beauty, as well as the abundant wildlife and plants found in the Grand Teton National Park, have drawn people here for more than 11,000 years. The Nomadic Paleo-Indians first accessed or rather entered the Jackson Hole valley after the Pleistocene Ice Age glaciers retreated. Summer was a time of plenty and abundance and the Indians came to harvest berries and bulbs.

The first Euro-American explorer to enter this place was John Colter but did not leave any records of his journey. People also visited this place for wealth. Development started to crowd the Jackson Hole as tourism increased. In 1926 John D. Rockefeller visited the area and fell in love with the stunning mountain scenery and began buying land in the valley with the intent of donating it to the federal government to be the Grand Teton National Park.

It took many years to establish the park. In 1929, Congress created the original park to protect the Teton Range and other lakes at the bottom of the mountains. In 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the additional land in the valley to be the Jackson Hole Monument. Rockefeller donated the land he had purchased to the federal government to be included in the national park. In 1950, Congress joined the original park, the Rockefeller land, and the national monument to form the current Grand Teton National Park.

Granite Canyon To String Lake

12 Once

The 38-mile traverse from Granite Canyon Trailhead to String Lake Trailhead is almost identical to my favorite Teton Crest Trail itinerary and arguably more tantalizing to some backpackers. It explores another of the cliff-flanked eastern canyons and more of the southern Teton Rangeand offers another appealing itinerary option when seeking a permit thats hard to get.

Granite Canyon compares with Death Canyon for scenery, camping options, and the chance of seeing moose, and this route also brings you past pretty Marion Lake, which sits in a bowl at the base of the cliffs of 10,537-foot Housetop Mountain, and the distinctive spire of Spearhead Peak, in the area where the Teton Crest Trail ascends onto the high plateau that it traverses for numerous miles all the way to Hurricane Pass.

A trip like this goes better with the right gear. See my picks for The 10 Best Backpacking Packsand The 8 Best Backpacking Tents.

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Grand Teton National Park Free Campsites 13 Miles: Pacific Creek Road Campsites

Address Elevation: 6972â²

Management â Public â Forest Service

The road in is Dirt. There are 6-15 campsites at this location. Free Campsites before you reach the Pacific Creek Campground. Each campsite has a number on a brown plate. 1-3 are grouped together, 4 & 5 were separate, then 6, 7 and 8 are grouped together. No toilet, trash, or water provided. Campfire rings made of rocks.

The coordinates on this website are accurate and took us to campground 5. We went at the end of October and there was no one around ! Hard to find dry firewood, so bring your own is my suggestion. Beautiful place and perfect location to camp before a day at Yellowstone !

Activities:

Elevation: 7058â²

Management â Public â Forest Service

The road in is Gravel and 1-10 miles depending on the site miles from a paved road.

Stayed here for 2 nights. Got there right around sunset and drove pretty far up the road to check out all the spots. As far as I can tell there are only 3 or 4 spots with views of the Tetons, and they fill up quick. My second night I was able to snag one and it was great! ATT service was pretty spotty. I mostly didnât have service except for rare spots where I would have 1 or 2 bars of 3G. This site is super close to the Tetons, so itâs a great place to stay while visiting the park!

Best Sunrise Spots Grand Tetons

Because you face the mountains from the east, the best views in Grand Teton National Park are typically early in the morning. In fact, all of the viewpoints below are great places to see a Grand Teton sunrise.

Keep in mind when thinking about the best sunrise spots Grand Tetons has, that the sun rises in the opposite direction, so you wont actually see the sunrise. Grand Tetons are roughly north-south in orientation.

However, as the sun, having risen over the opposite Gros Centre Mountains, hits the peaks of the mountains, their tips glow a brilliant orange color. I was also lucky enough to witness pink rays of color bursting from the mountains soon after the sunrise it was truly breathtaking.

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Important Tips For Grand Teton National Park Camping

Like most national park campgrounds, Jenny Lake Campground is no-frills. Each campsite includes a picnic table, fire pit, and bear locker. There is a flat, level pad to set your tent up on, which we always appreciate. Ours had room for two small tents. The washrooms include toilets and sinks, but no showers, and there are water spigots sprinkled throughout the campground for filling up your bottles and for cooking. Here are a few tips for a successful camping trip at Jenny Lake Campground.

If you dont want to rough it, but still want to explore Grand Teton National Park, read this guide for exploring both Grand Teton and Yellowstone in one trip, complete with some great lodging opportunities for families.

Do you love Jenny Lake Campground as much as we do? Or maybe you have another recommendation for camping in Grand Teton National Park. Wed love to hear what you think in the comments below!

Want to read more about planning a national park adventure? Check out our National Parks Hiking and Camping Guide or read some of these posts:

Where To See A Grand Teton Sunset

Grand Teton National Park. Top things to do. Hiking, Camping, Photography, Wildlife, 2 Utah Hikers

Whats the best place to see sunset in Grand Teton National Park? All of the viewpoints are also great for sunsets, but the best sunset spots Grand Tetons has are those a substantial foreground and space for you set up your tripod.

In general, seeing the mountains in the afternoon is not the best, especially for photography, as the light is behind them. However, if you wait until AFTER the sun has set, the clouds often turn fantastical pinks, oranges and reds, framing the mountains silhouettes beautifully.

For sunrise and sunset photography, you will need a tripod, since the light is dim and your exposures need to be long.

I dont like to lug lots of equipment around with me, so I love the Gorillapod tripod. It has flexible legs that you can bend for different surfaces and even around a pole. Its small and light, so it fits easily in my day pack. You can get them for regular cameras and cell phones. Check out prices for regular camera Gorillapods here and for cell phone Gorillapods here.

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General Guidelines And Safety Tips

  • Bear spray has proven to be an effective, non-lethal, bear deterrent capable of stopping aggressive behavior in bears. While not required, it is HIGHLY recommended that you carry bear spray on you at all times when hiking in the Parks. We offer bear spray rentals. See our gear page for more information.
  • All backpackers must carry and use an approved bear-proof canister in GTNP . For more information see the Bear Safety page.
  • Carry out all of your garbage.
  • Prevent erosion by hiking on established trails. Cutting switchbacks causes soil erosion.
  • Observe and photograph wildlife from a safe distance. Do not approach or feed animals.
  • Prevent contamination of waterways by burying feces in a hole 6-8 inches deep at least 200 feet from streams and lakes. Pack out used toilet paper, tampons, sanitary napkins and diapers in sealed plastic bags. Do not bury or burn them.
  • Carry drinking water. Bring tablets or water filtration devices to purify water in the backcountry.
  • Be prepared for rapid weather changes bring rain gear and extra clothing. Thunderstorms occur frequently during the summer. Please watch GTNPs Summer Weather Video for more information
  • High elevation may cause breathing difficulties pace yourself.
  • Snow melts gradually, leaving valley trails by mid-June, canyon trails by late July. Be careful crossing snowfields and streams.
  • Tell someone where you are going and when you expect to return.
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