Yellowstone Lake area

We spent two weeks in Yellowstone National Park (staying at the Fishing Bridge RV Park), going out and exploring the park pretty much every day. So I’m going to post about each area of the park for the next week or so, moving clockwise around the park, rather than following our activities in chronological order. That should make these posts a useful resource for people planning to visit the park, but only have time for one or two areas.

Here’s a map of Yellowstone (click to go to the interactive maps on the NPS site):

A PDF edition (best viewed in light mode; there’s a toggle in the upper-right corner of the web page):

Since we were staying at Fishing Bridge, let’s start with the Yellowstone Lake area. Here’s a map of that area:

On our first day we stopped by the nearby Fishing Bridge Visitor Center, one of the smaller visitor centers:

Fishing Bridge Visitor Center

The Fishing Bridge:

The Fishing Bridge

Yellowstone Lake:

Yellowstone Lake

Lake sunset

We took a drive out east to Sylvan Lake:

Sylvan Lake

Back to the Lake Butte overlook above Yellowstone Lake:

Yellowstone Lake

Lake cabins:

Lake cabins

Lake lodge:

Lake lodge

Lake Village General Store:

Lake Village General Store

Yellowstone Lake

Lake Yellowstone Hotel:

Lake Yellowstone Hotel

A pelican on the lake:

Pelican

Fishing Bridge General Store:

Fishing Bridge General Store

Fishing Bridge gas station:

Fishing Bridge gas station

A bison on a hill by the Fishing Bridge, and a couple of tourons — tourist morons, too close to the bison:

Bison and stupid people

Bison strolling down the center of the road:

Bison strolling down the center of the road

Tomorrow, we head south to West Thumb and Grant Village.

Fishing Bridge Campground, Yellowstone National Park

We stayed at Fishing Bridge Campground in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. (Campground Reviews listing.)

Our third stay in Yellowstone, though the first in our coach; our first stay was in a cabin back in 2011, and our previous stay was in a rented trailer in 2021 (while our coach sat back at our homestead, as the campground we stayed at, Madison, wasn’t big enough; a trip planned before we bought our coach). See the Yellowstone trip posts for details. That’s for the two of us; Jenn practically grew up in Yellowstone, visiting several times as a kid.

The Fishing Bridge campground (at 7,790 feet elevation) is the only one big enough for us in Yellowstone, and was recently significantly overhauled to include nice big paved sites in the E loop.

Dates:

Check in: 2023-07-22
Check out: 2023-08-05
14 nights

Weather:

Mostly sunny for most of the time, drizzly and thunder storms the last few days
High temps ranging between 58-80°F, lows around 48-52°F
Some wind, up to 28 MPH gusts

Noise:

No road noise
No train noise
Not much neighbor noise (kids)

Site:

#E302, pull-through, concrete
Didn’t need to disconnect toad; parked in front of coach
Level
Concrete pad about 70 feet long by about 12 feet wide
Grass between sites about 12 feet wide
Mature trees around campground, few within
Concrete patio with picnic table
No fire pit

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located
75 PSI water, conveniently located
Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

Starlink: 105-122 Mbps down, 2-10 Mbps up, 75 ms ping
Verizon: 13-17 Mbps down, 3-6 Mbps up, 75-625 ms ping (unreliable)
AT&T: 0.5 Mbps down, 0.02 Mbps up, 1500 ms ping
T-Mobile: no service
Campground Wi-Fi: none

Amenities:

Garbage dumpsters
National Park

Our review on Campground Reviews:

FHU in Yellowstone? Yes Please!

I’ve been coming to Yellowstone since before I could walk. I’ve camped in the rustic campgrounds and stayed in lodges. The only other option if you have a big rig and need full hookups is to stay outside the park and wait in traffic every day to get in, so for for my money, this is the best option around. We had a nice pull-through site in the new section and were very impressed with the concrete pads. The site was level and had excellent hookups, even if the water spigot was a bit weird. There are few trees around the campsites, so there was a good Starlink connection if you need to stay connected. We camped at Fishing Bridge RV Park in a Motorhome.

The campground map:

Map

An interactive map, still showing the old layout of the campground as I write this:

Our site:

Our site

On a non-rainy day:

Our site

We were very glad for our Starlink dish and flagpole, as there was little cellular coverage:

Starlink on flagpole

Check in area:

Check in area

Other sites:

Other sites

A nice campground, and with a park the size of Yellowstone, certainly beneficial to be able to stay within the park. We’ll definitely stay here again in the future.