Teardrop Camping in Grand Teton and Yellowstone

Several readers have requested a breakdown of our teardrop camping trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone, so this post will include where we stayed and the various things we did on our latest camping trip.

We drove up to Grand Teton from our home in western Nevada through Elko and Wells and up into Twin Falls, Pocatello and Idaho Falls, Idaho. Our first night was a slight disaster as we found ourselves driving into the small town of Elko in the dark. We decided to spend the night with a few other RVs in the Wal-Mart parking lot, but my husband ended up waking up at about midnight complaining that it was too hot to sleep on the store's black asphalt. Because the nearest parks were in the mountains about 40 miles away, we decided to bite the bullet and get a hotel room for the night. It really irks me to get a room when we have a perfectly good teardrop trailer bed, but when you don't have air conditioning...it's a necessary evil.

The next day was filled with driving through the wheat, corn and potato fields of Idaho. We spent the next night at the Snake River RV Resort in Idaho Falls — just a few miles shy of Grand Teton. We don't normally like to camp in these types of RV resorts, but it was actually really nice to have a clean place for the night with showers, laundry and a pancake breakfast in the morning.

The next day, we drove through the beautiful mountains just south of Grand Teton (nearly running into a large female moose on the road) and down into the the cute and bustling town of Jackson, Wyoming. We had been planning on staying at the Gros Ventre Campground since they don't require reservations and we were able to snag a spot about an hour before the weekend campers started coming in. The entire weekend we were at Gros Ventre (pronounced Grow Vont) the larger spots were all taken, but the place never filled up — even in mid-August.

When our friends arrived at the nearby Jackson Hole Airport, we had dinner at the Snake River Brewery and planned out what we were going to do. That evening we caught a ride on the free Jackson Hole tram to the top of the mountain and watched the sunset.

 

 

 

The next day, we found out that Grand Teton is a strange park for driving around in. We ended up driving around a large part of the park without even paying for the entrance fee ($25 per car for both Grand Teton and Yellowstone). For the next few days we explored the area around Gros Ventre, saw moose, pronghorn, bison and some fantastic cloud formations. We went for a great hike to Hidden Falls and woke up VERY early in the morning to watch the Perseid meteor shower over the south shore of Jenny Lake. As far as a national park goes, Grand Teton is nearly empty. Most people drive right through on their way to Yellowstone, but this area has turned out to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to.

After a few nights in Grand Teton, we went on one last shopping trip in Jackson and headed up to Yellowstone. The traffic and the construction on the Roosevelt Scenic byway was very busy and it took us at least three hours to make it to our campsite at Madison on the west side of the park. After our beautiful and green campsite in Grand Teton, I was disappointed with our spot at Madison. Madison is really just a glorified parking lot. There is a nice creek and mountain behind the campground, but the place is jammed full of RVs, trailers and tents. The food and bear rules in the park and the campground are strict. We even received a warning about our Dutch oven and had to pack it away in the car. However, the teardrop did get a fair bit of traffic during our time there. I gave a few tours and even one of the camp hosts came over to look at it.

 

 

Yellowstone is so huge and there is no way you can see the entire thing. Every morning we packed up our friends' rental car with everything we would need for the day and took off. We visited the geothermal pools of the Norris Basin and Biscuit Basin, saw Old Faithful erupt at 7:00 in the morning, had a breakfast buffet at the beautiful Old Faithful Inn, hiked to Mystic Falls and the hot pools around it, visited the Grand Canyon on a rainy day, hiked down Uncle Tom's Trail, and visited the Canyon Village area and the strange Mammoth Hot Springs.

 

Our best day had to be our trip to Lamar Valley. We woke up at about 4 a.m. to get onto the road before other travelers and ran straight into a pack of female elk. The day just got better from there. We saw a female moose and her calf in a small pond, many herds of bison in the fields and on the road, a wolf who decided to stand on a hill and howl woefully at us and a large grizzly bear named Scarface. We never even made it to Yellowstone Lake or the far east side of the park. This guarantees that we will have to go back.

On our way back home, we stayed at a KOA in Twin Falls Idaho (again for hot showers) and visited Shoshone Falls, the Niagara Falls of the West.


Photos by Andres Leon Photography, Nelly Leon and Christina Nellemann

Teardropping in Yellowstone and Grand Teton

My yellow teardrop trailer recently returned from a trip to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. It was a quick 10 days in the parks, but we packed a lot into the trip. The primary reason for the trip was to meet up with our good friends from southern Florida. Every few years we meet up at a national park and go camping together. We hope to continue the tradition since we have so much fun.

So, what's it like to teardrop in one of the most popular national parks in the nation? Here are a few things I learned while teardropping around the land of mountains and moose.

1. Bears rule

You have to be very vigilant when teardropping in bear country. Every campground you go to will be adamant about correct storage of your food, ice chests, water containers and food waste. The week before we came, a bear had to be "dispatched" since he had acquired a taste for camper food and kept returning to the campground. With a teardrop trailer, this can be a challenge. We usually don't have the room to store all our food or ice chests in the galley so we had to keep two ice chests (with enough food for four people for 10 days) in the car most of the time. Since it was warm for a few days, this melted our ice more quickly.

We also had to keep a very clean camp. I was constantly using rags and paper towels to wipe up our stove, picnic table, cooking area and the teardrop galley. We also had to put the Dutch oven in the car and the water containers had to be locked up.

2. Food shopping is miserable in the park

If you plan on going to Yellowstone or Grand Teton, do the majority of your food shopping in the small towns outside of the park. This includes the town of Jackson near Grand Teton or West Yellowstone in Montana. The "grocery stores" in Yellowstone really only sell junk food, overpriced bacon and eggs and very little vegetables or fruit. Stock up before getting your camp.

The galley of the teardrop trailer was full of food and it was piled everywhere. Having some sort of organization will save you frustration.

3. Be prepared for any kind of weather

In the course of 10 days we experienced spring-like days, roasting heat, rainstorms, hail and freezing cold nights. This area of the country has some crazy weather that can change in 20 minutes. My teardrop is waterproof which was great for us when the skies opened up at around 10 p.m. one night. Before going to bed or leaving camp, be sure to have everything tucked underneath a table or under the teardrop. Use a pop-up shelter to protect your picnic table and always close the galley hatch at night.

4. In this land of amazing things, teardrops still attract attention

On our way up to the park, we must have seen at least six or seven other teardrop trailers. We all waved to each other. I also got another six visitors to the trailer who wanted the nickel tour. One teardrop owner was nice enough to come by and show us his solar panel setup and how simple it is to hook-up to a teardrop battery. It's officially my next project.

Prepping for Yellowstone

We are leaving on our big teardrop camping trip to Yellowstone in just over a week. Just before a big trip, I will do a thorough search of the teardrop trailer to make sure we have everything on hand before we hit the road. During the process, I'll keep a piece of paper handy for writing down things we need to get or do.  Some of these list items are not what you would normally expect, but turn out to be good teardropping tips.

So far, the list reads like this:

1. Cut two flat pieces of wood to fit in by the propane tank

I'm looking around for some flat wood that we can use to prop up the tires if we happen to be parked on uneven ground. These are especially helpful when leveling the teardrop trailer for sleeping. I want them to tuck nicely away in the galley.

2. Don't forget the extra keys!

We pack two sets of teardrop keys and two sets of car keys. One is always in my pocket or backpack and the other is stashed in the center console of the car. On the teardrop keychain is the door key, the galley key, the key to the hitch lock and the key to our bear-proof ice chest lock.

3. Make room for bedding

Since we are camping with some friends who will be flying into Jackson and sleeping in a tent, we have to bring along their bedding. I am trying to get it all to fit in the storage space underneath the bed. This also includes their pillows and towels.

4. Fill up the garbage bag bag

We have a small nylon bag that holds plastic grocery bags that we hang under our camp table and use for garbage. We have a tendency to forget all about this handy little bag carrier and find ourselves "borrowing" plastic bags from the local grocery store.

Big Summer Teardrop Trip

This August the Sunflower will be heading up to Yellowstone on her first trip through Idaho and into Wyoming. We actually snagged a spot at the Madison Campground near West Yellowstone and will be camping there for about a week with two of our friends from Florida. We will also be spending a night or two in Grand Teton National Park.

I would love to hear where other teardroppers will be going for their summer camping trips and in the meantime, I do get a kick out of watching the Yellowstone videos by Airstream owners, Sean and Kristy: