Yellowstone NP - Fishing Bridge - NO ELEC!

We just got a call from Yellowstone Central Reservations to inform us that Fishing Bridge campground no longer has electrical hookups. The water and sewer are still in place, and they have some designated sites for generator use (8 am - 8 pm). The plan is to upgrade the campground to handle the bigger rigs (50 amp service), but until then they will have no electricity available.

We are planning to be there the week after Labor Day 2010. We have to decide do we want to stay in the middle of the park and see if we can borrow a generator, or stay outside the park with hookups and drive 30-40 miles each way to do any activities.

I have two almost new 6 volt golf cart batteries, so we could probably last several days on a charge if we are conservative. And I may have a friend who has a Honda generator I can borrow.

Suggestions and opinions are welcome.
Alan

Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Buy one! Your friend will be happier.

[wbmiller3]

Ah, government planning.

I'd say the convenience of staying there outweighs the bother. Use the fridge on propane and don't pump water, you'll be fine.

[ShrimpBurrito]

FWIW, we have 2 Trojan T-105's with about 230 Ah, and if we don't use the furnace, we could pretty easily last the entire week with conservative light usage (no more than 3 lights on at a time for ~4 hrs/day).

The furnace is the major battery drain. After that, the lights. After that, everything else is negligible.

For far less than the cost of a decent generator, you could install 2 additional golf cart batteries in the rear compartment, and have boat loads of power for years to come.

Dave

I'd still stay at Fishing Bridge. It's so much more convenient than driving in and out of the park every day.

Borrow the genset if you're staying more than 3 or 4 nights. You want to be able to enjoy your stay and not be compromising your comfort and worrying about the state of your batteries. Under the best circumstances, it will be cold at night and you'll want to run the heater. Under the worst circumstances, it will be below freezing at night and you'll run the heater even more. It also gets dark earlier that time of year, so you'll have your lights on inside much longer than you would in mid-summer.

Make sure your propane tanks are full.

Bummer that the changeover is happening when you're there but it makes sense to upgrade to 50 amp given the number of land yachts that visit the campground. And the work can only be done during the camping season.

My opinion only, of course.

Keith

[B_and_D]

Sounds like an exciting trip! I think that I'd plan on staying in the park, since it's so close, and also borrow the generator if I could, but plan on replacing it for them if it was stolen or damaged beyond repair. It looks like it can get pretty cold there at night in September. We camp a lot without hookups in the mountains, but it's always in the summer, and it always warms up during the days. We also bring along an extra group 27 12V battery, and sometimes the campground host will charge it up for us, or we take it along in the bed of the truck and charge it up while we're driving along sightseeing.

Or just go buy a small generator. You can always use it when the power goes out.

Or, stay at Fishing Bridge for 3 or 4 nights, check out the stuff close to the campground, and then move to another park with hookups and check out the stuff closer to that park. It sounds like Yellowstone is a fairly large area to cover. You've got options and quite a while to plan ahead!

[Frenchy]

The other campgrounds in Yellowstone are nicer than Fishing Bridge except for full hookups. I've stayed in Fishing Bridge and Bridge Bay campgrounds. I'd pick Bridge Bay if I couldn't have electricity at Fishing Bridge. FWIW.

[B_and_D]

There's a discussion about this topic going on at rv.net:

http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fu...g/1/page/1.cfm

Might give you some other ideas...

Except Fishing bridge still has water and sewer - which makes it appealing. We'll be dry camping in Grand Teton for 2 days after Yellowstone so that will test my self-contained ability. :-)

[ferdoh]

There is a campground between Yellowstone and the Tetons NP that has hookups. It's nothing special but you won't be there much anyway.