Rex Hale
1Heads up1 fire 32 mi away
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $15–$30Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 29All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Rex Hale Campground is located along the Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway about 36 miles west of Cody, in northwestern Wyoming. It is just over 16 miles east of Yellowstone National Park's east entrance. The surrounding area offers many outdoor recreational opportunities, including fishing, hiking and viewing local wildlife. The campground is named after Rex Hale, one of 15 firefighters who died in the 1937 Blackwater Fire, which burned more than 1,700 acres of Forest Service lands within the Shoshone National Forest. 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. A firefighter memorial is located along the highway, just over a mile west of the campground. Forest Service Trail 758 leads to two additional memorials, which mark the locations where other firefighters lost their lives in the Blackwater Fire. Mummy Cave is less than a mile from the campground. This historical site was discovered in 1957 and found to have been occupied for a period of over 9,000 years. Many artifacts, including a mummified ancient inhabitant, were excavated from the large alcove, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.
Facilities
The campground offers several campsites, some of which have electric hookups. Each site is equipped with a table, campfire ring and food storage locker. Potable water, vault toilets, and trash collection are provided. Campers are allowed to gather firewood in the area.
Natural Features
The campground is situated near the banks of the North Fork of the Shoshone River and offers views of spectacular red cliffs, where bighorn sheep may be seen early in the season. 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 18 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
Horses and other livestock are not permitted to stay in the campground, but they are allowed to pass through
An additional fee will be collected at the campground for extra vehicles
Everything else this campground posts · 2
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.
Click here for more information on the Shoshone National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 29
- Hookups
- 8 electric, 8 water
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- 13
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…and food storage locker. Potable water, vault toilets, and trash collection are provided. Campers are…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…campfire ring and food storage locker. Potable water, vault toilets, and trash collection are provided.…”
- Bear boxes
- Yes
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 6th 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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $15–$30 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 Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
29 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 29 mapped sitesAll 29 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 29 of the 29 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 29 of the 29 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.
| REX HALE | 002 | standard electric | 40 ft | 15/30/50 amp | yes | 95 ft | 525 ft | 77 ft | $25–$30 |
| REX HALE | 003 | standard electric | 40 ft | 15/30/50 amp | yes | 90 ft | 567 ft | 133 ft | $25–$30 |
| REX HALE | 004 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | yes | 68 ft | 527 ft | 166 ft | $15–$20 | |
| REX HALE | 005 | standard electric | 40 ft | 15/30/50 amp | yes | 68 ft | 593 ft | 216 ft | $25–$30 |
| REX HALE | 006 | standard electric | 40 ft | 15/30/50 amp | yes | 97 ft | 594 ft | 166 ft | $25–$30 |
| REX HALE | 007 | standard electric | 40 ft | 15/30/50 amp | yes | 95 ft | 597 ft | 148 ft | $25–$30 |
| REX HALE | 008 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 49 ft | 563 ft | 169 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 009 | standard electric | 40 ft | 15/30/50 amp | yes | 49 ft | 574 ft | 215 ft | $25–$30 |
| REX HALE | 010 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 49 ft | 475 ft | 249 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 011 | standard electric | 38 ft | 15/30/50 amp | yes | 49 ft | 508 ft | 245 ft | $25–$30 |
| REX HALE | 012 | standard electric | 40 ft | 15/30/50 amp | yes | 110 ft | 460 ft | 143 ft | $25–$30 |
| REX HALE | 013 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 100 ft | 367 ft | 99 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 014 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 66 ft | 348 ft | 197 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 015 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 66 ft | 285 ft | 194 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 016 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 87 ft | 246 ft | 137 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 017 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 87 ft | 274 ft | 73 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 018 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 60 ft | 323 ft | 116 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 019 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 60 ft | 372 ft | 154 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 020 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 109 ft | 368 ft | 259 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 021 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 47 ft | 439 ft | 133 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 022 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 47 ft | 399 ft | 166 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 023 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | yes | 137 ft | 418 ft | 66 ft | $15–$20 | |
| REX HALE | 024 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 66 ft | 286 ft | 191 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 025 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 43 ft | 322 ft | 202 ft | $15–$20 | |
| REX HALE | 026 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 43 ft | 281 ft | 237 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 027 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | yes | 56 ft | 322 ft | 158 ft | $15–$20 | |
| REX HALE | 028 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 56 ft | 276 ft | 185 ft | $15–$20 | ||
| REX HALE | 029 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 81 ft | 315 ft | 136 ft | $15–$20 | |
| REX HALE | 030 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 103 ft | 261 ft | 212 ft | $15–$20 |
25 of 29 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Clearwater CampgroundShoshone National Forest · 2.9 mi
Wapiti CampgroundShoshone National Forest · 5.1 mi
Big Game CampgroundShoshone National Forest · 6.0 miEagle Creek CampgroundShoshone National Forest · 8.2 mi
Threemile CampgroundShoshone National Forest · 12 miFrom Cody, Wyo., follow Sheridan Avenue west through Cody until the road leaves town and becomes the Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway (U.S. Highway 14/16/20). The campground is located 36 miles from Cody, on the south side of the highway. It is between Newton Campground to the west and Clearwater Campground to the east.
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 25°F, day 53°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 7°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
Rex Hale 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 →