Big Game Campground
1Heads up1 fire 26 mi away
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 13All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Big Game Campground is located along the Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway about 29 miles west of Cody, in northwestern Wyoming. It is 23 miles east of the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The surrounding area offers many outdoor recreational opportunities, including fishing, hiking and viewing local wildlife. Keep reading
Recreation
Great opportunities for hiking, fishing, scenic driving and wildlife viewing are available around the campground. The North Fork of the Shoshone River is a popular fly-fishing location for rainbow and Yellowstone cutthroat trout. The Wapiti Wayside is less than a half-mile east of the campground, and offers interpretive information on bears and other local wildlife.
Facilities
The campground offers single-family campsites, each equipped with a table and campfire ring. Vault toilets and trash collection are provided. Campers are allowed to gather firewood in the area. There is no water available at the campground.
Natural Features
The campground is situated among cottonwood and juniper trees, along the North Fork Shoshone River, at an elevation of 6,000 feet. A wide variety of wildlife lives in the surrounding area. Visitors often glimpse grizzly bears, deer, elk, bison, moose, fox, coyotes and bald eagles.
Nearby Attractions
Pahaska Tepee, west of the campground, is home to Buffalo Bill's original hunting lodge, built in 1904. Tours are offered daily between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Pahaska also offers guided horseback rides, a gift shop, restaurant and lodging. Yellowstone National Park's east entrance is 23 miles from the campground via the Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway. The park offers unparalleled wildlife viewing opportunities, as well as breathtaking scenery and unique geological features. The small, historic city of Cody offers a variety of dining, lodging and shopping options. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center offers extensive displays of Greater Yellowstone natural history, Plains Indians artifacts, western art, firearms, Buffalo Bill memorabilia and a wild sheep exhibit.
What the agency tells you
GRIZZLY BEARS FREQUENT THE AREA; ALL FOOD, BEVERAGES, COOLERS, TRASH AND OTHER ATTRACTANTS MUST BE PROPERLY STORED AT ALL TIMES
An additional fee will be collected at the campground for extra vehicles
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing organisms by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Everything else this campground posts · 1
Click here for more information on the Shoshone National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 13
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 120 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…equipped with a table and campfire ring. Vault toilets and trash collection are provided. Campers are…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…allowed to gather firewood in the area. There is no water available at the campground. Natural Features The…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 31st darkest of 248 in WY
- Bortle 2
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $15 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
14 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 14 mapped sitesAll 14 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 13 of the 14 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| BIG GAME | 002 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 100 ft | 766 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 003 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 116 ft | 726 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 004 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 113 ft | 764 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 005 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 109 ft | 869 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 006 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 109 ft | 766 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 007 | standard nonelectric | 29 ft | 151 ft | 703 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 008 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 193 ft | 522 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 009 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 141 ft | 494 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 010 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 141 ft | 556 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 011 | standard nonelectric | 120 ft | 133 ft | 440 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 012 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 106 ft | 534 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 013 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 106 ft | 538 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | 014 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 124 ft | 462 ft | $15 |
| BIG GAME | Host | host pad | 42 ft | 100 ft | 672 ft | $15 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It names it a host pad. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Wapiti CampgroundShoshone National Forest · 1.0 mi
Clearwater CampgroundShoshone National Forest · 3.1 mi
Rex HaleShoshone National Forest · 6.0 miNewton Creek CampgroundShoshone National Forest · 7.7 miBobcat-Houlihan CampgroundCody Field Office · 13 miEagle Creek CampgroundShoshone National Forest · 14 miFrom Cody, Wyo., follow Sheridan Avenue west through Cody until the road leaves town, and becomes Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway (U.S. Highway 14/16/20). The campground is 29 miles west of Cody, on the north side of the highway and next to the river. It is between Wapiti Campground and Horse Creek Picnic Area.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cody, WY
Typical weather
Typical October night 33°F, day 57°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 17°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Big Game Campground is in Wyoming’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Harriet Hageman (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →