Soda Butte Campground

SODA BUTTE CAMPGROUND
GALLATIN NATIONAL FOREST
COOKE CITY - MONTANA
ELEVATION: 7,360

My love for National Forest campgrounds has been there for as long as I can remember. As a young child I fell in love with the signs and equated those signs with the best camping experience in the world. Rustic camping, spacious sites, and best of all they are almost always residing in a scenic wonderland of beauty. Fast forward many years and my first trip back to Yellowstone since I was a child and the dedication to these campgrounds blossomed.

This is Soda Butte campground in the Gallatin National Forest. It resides just outside of the NE entrance of Yellowstone National Park. When I travelled thru in 2010 this campground was open to all sorts of camping including popups, travel trailers, and tents. We stayed for one night in early July just as the campground was opening for the season not knowing that three weeks later there would be a horrific grizzly bear attack here that would leave one person dead and others injured. The campground was closed for the rest of the season and when it reopened the next season restrictions were in place that allowed only fully hard shell campers to stay here. No more tents and no more popups/hybrids. What I also noticed on a swing thru here in 2012 is that camping fees had been reduced to $9 a night. Thats a pretty cheap night of camping.

Soda Butte is situated amongst some very majestic peaks many of which are visible inside of the campground and from your campsite. Thats not always something you get when camping so close to such peaks. This is the entrance to the park and on this first week the park was open in 2010 the gate was still closed to camping on the lower part of the campground.

Camping in grizzly territory means bear boxes. These boxes are big and they are more like a safe than a box. Soda Butte provides one bear box per campsite. In some campgrounds bear boxes are shared by more than one campsite.

The rules are fairly simple with bear boxes. The forest service wants all food items inside of this box or an enclosed and secure vehicle. We stored all of our food items inside of our van. Being the first time I had camped in grizzly territory since Glacier National Park almost 20 years before I was a bit reluctant to take these rules so seriously. Had I known that a grizzly would feed on campers a couple weeks after we were there I would most likely acted differently.

If you've ever camped in a national park you'll understand what I mean when I say that camping in one of our national parks is something similar to a glorified refugee camp. This is why I choose to stay at National Forest campgrounds. The sites are bigger and provide much more insulating space from your neighbors. There are many beautiful campgrounds just outside of each of Yellowstone's entrances. Soda Butte sits just outside the NE entrance near the town of Cooke City, Montana. This is probably one of the last pictures of a popup camping inside this campground.

The night we stayed in Soda Butte the campground was mostly empty. These two sites were fairly close together but its hard to beat those views. 

This small creek was in the rear of our campsite. For us there is nothing better than camping near a babbling brook or stream. The sound of its running waters creates a white noise that is unlike anything else. 

The picture of the bear scat was very fresh and being three weeks before the attack I always wondered if it came from one of those bears. Right after I took the picture I couldnt help but wonder what a strange man I was for taking a picture of scat.

More running water. The campground is adjacent to the Beartooth Highway which is one of the main entry points into Yellowstone. When you are near creeks like this they tend to drown out much of the traffic that passes by. Honestly, there wasnt that much traffic anyways.

On my return trip thru in 2012 I hoped to see that camping restrictions were now removed. I was disappointed to see that wasnt the case. I called the forest service that summer and inquired as to the possibility of that happening. I was told that opening this campground to other forms of camping (popus/hybrids) remains a possibility as they were going to revisit the issue again. Notice the sign that says Soda Creek campground. The other sign in the campground identifies itself as Soda Butte. I always wondered why the discrepancy. I hope to revisit this campground someday. How about removing those restrictions forest service!