Campground · Beartooth Highway
A hard-sided-only campground two miles east of Cooke City.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Beartooth Highway Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Beartooth Highway. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Beartooth Highway audio tourRecorded for this place
Colter Campground“You're coming up on Colter Campground, a wooded overnight base about two miles from Cooke City. Its eighteen sites are first come, first served and restricted to hard-sided vehicles, so tent campers need another option.”
Plays as you drive up to Colter Campground in the Parkwolf Beartooth Highway Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Colter is a small, 18-site Forest Service campground on US 212, about two miles east of Cooke City. It works best as an overnight base for the Beartooth drive or a visit to Yellowstone’s Northeast Entrance, rather than a sightseeing stop on its own. The sites sit in a wooded clearing with mountain views.
This is a first-come, first-served campground with a short summer season that can shift with weather. Hard-sided vehicles only; no tents. The campground road isn’t suitable for vehicles longer than 48 feet, and RV parking spurs average 22 by 66 feet. There are no reservations, so keep a backup plan if your route can’t flex. Cooke City is about two miles west on US 212; stop there for food and supplies, since no food service or store is listed at the campground.
Expect potable water, vault toilets, picnic tables, fire grates, food-storage boxes, trash pickup, and parking. There are no electrical hookups, so plan for dry camping. Spacious sites, clean toilets, and helpful camp hosts are the comforts people tend to notice; summer mosquitoes can be bothersome. Construction on the Beartooth Highway began in 1932; the route was completed on June 14, 1936, and Colter is one of the Forest Service campgrounds serving the Cooke City end of the route.
Wildlife
42 sightingsGrizzly BearMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
22 sightingsGray WolfMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
49 sightingsBisonMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
122 sightingsMooseMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
260 sightingsMountain GoatMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
16 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 7 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Beartooth Highway. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
EasySoda Butte Creek Trail2.5 mi · 1.5 hr · 1.4 mi awayA short historic-route walk on gravel east of Cooke City.
ModerateRock Island Lake Trail6.8 mi · 3.5 hr · 1.4 mi awayMarsh bridges, a Kersey overlook, and a high alpine lake.
ModerateWidewater Lake Trail11.6 mi · 6.5 hr · 1.4 mi awayA long walk at 8,000 feet to a large trout lake.
ChallengingMariane Lake Trail16.6 mi · 9.5 hr · 1.4 mi awayLong, high backcountry miles lead to a rocky alpine lake.
ChallengingOtter Lake Trail18 mi · 11.5 hr · 1.4 mi awayA long high country walk to a remote trout lake.
ModerateVernon Lake Trail5.4 mi · 2.8 hr · 1.4 mi awayA lake payoff after one muddy, buggy mile at Clarks Fork.
ChallengingRussell Creek Trail20 mi · 12 hr · 1.4 mi awayA full-day high-country climb to Fossil Lake and back.
ModerateFox Lake Trail9 mi · 5 hr · 1.4 mi awayA high-country trout lake rewards the long walk from the highway.
Campground · 1.1 mi awaySoda Butte CampgroundA quiet, wooded base near Cooke City and Yellowstone’s northeast entrance.
Picnic area · 1.4 mi awayClarks Fork Picnic AreaA riverside pause with a little highway and flume history.
Store · 2.1 mi awayCooke City StoreA working mercantile still uses its hand-crank cash register.
Visitor center · 2.2 mi awayCooke City Visitor Center and MuseumNine touchscreens bring Cooke City's local history to life.
Campground · 4.7 mi awayFox Creek CampgroundSleep under conifers with Pilot and Index Peaks in view.Parkwolf’s Beartooth Highway ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
