Yellowstone National Park
About Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone's Recreation.gov-bookable campgrounds — Slough Creek, Pebble Creek, Indian Creek, Lewis Lake, Tower Fall, and Mammoth — are a small slice of the park's total camping, and that scarcity is exactly why they're competitive. Slough Creek and Pebble Creek in the Lamar Valley are especially prized for wildlife viewing, sitting in one of the best places in North America to see wolves at dawn.
Camping Alert logged roughly 900 cancellations across Yellowstone's tracked campgrounds in the past 30 days. That's lower volume than a park like Yosemite, which sounds like good news — but it also means fewer people are watching closely, so a well-placed alert has real odds of catching a drop before anyone else notices.
What to Expect
Slough Creek and Pebble Creek sit in the Lamar Valley in the park's northeast corner — often called "America's Serengeti" for the elk, bison, and wolf activity visible right from the road. Both campgrounds are small and rustic, with no hookups, which keeps them quieter than the larger developed sites elsewhere in the park.
Mammoth Campground, near the park's north entrance, is open essentially year-round and sits close to the terraces and the historic Fort Yellowstone buildings — a good option for shoulder-season or winter trips when most of the park's other campgrounds are closed. Lewis Lake, in the south near Grant Village, offers a quieter lakeside option with boat access. Tower Fall and Indian Creek round out the smaller, less-crowded sites in the park's interior.
Because Yellowstone is enormous, where you camp shapes your whole trip — Lamar Valley wildlife-watching is a different vacation than a Lewis Lake fishing trip. Decide what you're actually there for before you fixate on a specific campground.
Next Weekend: Sat, Aug 8 – Sun, Aug 9
Campgrounds in Yellowstone National Park
Availability shown for Next Weekend: Sat, Aug 8 – Sun, Aug 9
Booking Tips
- June is the easiest month for Slough Creek historically, based on Camping Alert's tracked drop data — still early enough to beat peak summer crowds while most sites are open.
- Sundays see the most cancellation activity at Slough Creek. Weekend trips wrapping up means a disproportionate number of openings land on Sunday.
- Mammoth stays open nearly year-round and is consistently the easiest tracked campground to book if your dates are flexible into the shoulder season.
- Reservations open 6 months ahead on Recreation.gov for most Yellowstone campgrounds — mark your release date and be ready right at opening.
- Set a flexible-date alert if you just want "a few nights in Yellowstone" rather than one specific campground — Explorer and Backcountry plans support natural-language date ranges across the whole park.
Never miss an opening at Yellowstone National Park
Get notified the moment a campsite becomes available — by email or SMS. Sub-5-minute scans on paid plans.