Motorcyle Tour Through Wyoming & Yellowstone National Park Camping

January 19, 2012Ricardo Perez

A Wyoming Creek Along Highway
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Stopping by a creek on our way to Yellowstone

Wyoming has to be one of the most beautiful states in the union. We started our ride just 25 miles south of Deadwood, South Dakota from a little town named Nemo. We stopped for breakfast in Deadwood before hooking up with Hwy 90 West toward Sundance then Gillette, Wyoming. We stayed on Hwy 90 until we hit Hwy 14 and continued on to Greybull and finally Cody, Wyoming. Cody is all Cowboy town and during the summer there's a rodeo every night. It's nice just to walk downtown and find a good place to eat and drink. We went for drinks at the Irma Hotel built in 1902 by Buffalo Bill and named after his daughter. It has a classic cherry wood bar that is still in use today. We spent the night at a Holiday Inn Express and a couple of the guys camped out at the KOA camp at the entrance of town. We were up for breakfast early and as it happened, we met the chef there at the hotel who asked where we were headed. After we said we were headed into Yellowstone he suggested that we stop at his parent's place in Cooke City, Montana.

View of winding Chief Joseph Highway

So we left Cody and took the famous Chief Joseph Highway as we headed to Cooke City and then on to Yellowstone National Park. The Chief Joseph Scenic Byway follows the route of Chief Joseph and his tribe as he successfully eluded US Cavalry troops in 1877. His route ran through Yellowstone and into Montana. It's a beautiful highway that's a must motorcycle ride.
Once we arrived in Cooke City, Montana it wasn't hard to spot Buns and Beds restaurant which was owned by the parents of the chef we met back in Cody. We had a good time enjoying the great burgers they made for us and talking about their annual snow fall. They mentioned that they get hunters in winter and campers in the summer time so they stay busy.

From Cooke City we entered Yellowstone National Park and made our way to the northwestern corner, a place called Mammoth Headquarters. It was obvious we weren't in Texas anymore as huge elk roamed the grounds without a care in the world. We went out to the campgrounds and secured a spot for ourselves and then went back to the headquarters to wait for a couple of the guys that had taken a detour from our route to Red Lodge, Montana so they were a couple of hours behind us. Once we joined up we settled into our campgrounds and setup our tents. I have a Marmont two person tent, but we managed to squeeze in four of us into it for a good night's sleep. Our Marmont sleeping bags are rated at 30 degrees so we slept very comfortably just a little tight. We really enjoyed the many wonderful scenic views in the park. Yellowstone is so beautiful that we can't wait to get back there and spend some serious time camping out. Of course, we took the loop road around the entire park and made the mandatory stop at Old Faithful. As you can see by the picture, it's still working, almost like clockwork. That area of the park is obviously the most popular, thus it's by far the most crowded area of the park so we were glad to get away from the crowds once we enjoyed a good lunch at the headquarters.

Old Faithful

We took a nice ride around the entire park except for one section that was closed by an ongoing forest fire. As a matter of fact, there were several fires ongoing during our ride. After we exited on the East side of Yellowstone it wasn't long before we ran into another forest fire. This one was really close to the highway. At one point it was within a couple of hundred yards from the highway as we had to slow down to a crawl as a helicopter crossed right in front of us and hovered over a stream running parallel to the highway. It hovered over the stream as it drew water up into its tanks to dump on the fire. It was soon off and headed back into the fire. That moment as it flew low over the highway in front of us and hovered over the stream looked surreal. Needless to say there was lots of smoke and it took many miles for us to get away from the smoke and back into clear skies.

Getting Away From Fire

We made our way back to Cody for another night's stay before heading back to South Dakota. We left Cody and headed on a different route back to Nemo. We headed South to Ten Sleep and then into Big Horn National Forest via Highway 16. That route was nice and not as crowded as the traffic on the Interstate Highway.
Yellowstone National Park is worth a camping trip and the rest of Wyoming is a wonderful state to tour. Our visit was way too short and we'll try to make it back there this summer. Motorcycle travel is fairly easy and we didn't encounter any problems. Once a coke truck broke down and we had to make a stop at an awkward incline, but once we got through that spot everything else was routine two-up riding.

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