North Texas to Yellowstone

[rockport]

We have a trip planned this June with reservations for 4 nights at Colter Bay rv park in Grand Teton National Park, then moving over to fishing bridge in Yellowstone for 6 nights. I am looking to take 2 1/2 days to get from Fort Worth to Colter Bay.

Looking for suggestions on route to take and also overnight stops. Anyone made this trip from the North Texas area.

I plan on two full days and short third day so we can get settled in at Grand Teton.

[RhoZeta]

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[bubbles]

From Fort Worth take Hwy 287 to Amarillo Overnight RV park. Hwy 287 to Strasburg CO. KOA. I-70/I-25/I-80 to Rawlins WY. KOA. HWY 287 to Colter Bay. This is how we do it from Waco. As can be seen it is more than 2 1/2 days but for us (the extra 90 miles to Fort Worth) it is plenty of time behind the wheel per day. This route is shorter than up through Raton NM. We surely do like Jackson Hole and the Tetons. We always stay at Colter Bay RV park. We have stayed at Fishing Bridge Yellowstone. Both to us have not been disappointing. Hope you enjoy your trip as much as we have enjoyed ours throughout the years.

[elind]

Hey! Amarillo Overnight RV park is where I'm sitting right now.

[rockport]

Yea I wasn't sure if I should go through Raton or not. I may try and make it to Boise City OK first night then on to Rawlins WY second night. Thanks for the input.

[bgilly]

Originally Posted by rockport

We have a trip planned this June with reservations for 4 nights at Colter Bay rv park in Grand Teton National Park, then moving over to fishing bridge in Yellowstone for 6 nights. I am looking to take 2 1/2 days to get from Fort Worth to Colter Bay.

Looking for suggestions on route to take and also overnight stops. Anyone made this trip from the North Texas area.

I plan on two full days and short third day so we can get settled in at Grand Teton.

If you are a Good Sams member, may I suggest using the Good Sams trip planning service: http://www.goodsamclub.com/travel/freetriprouting/

We used it for our 18 day trip out west and it was great. You simply put in or select (since most campgrounds are already in the database) the address of the campground and attractions you want to see. You can even customize the the route.
The cool thing about the trip planner is the "things to do". You can set this range from 1 to 60 miles along your route. It really helped us as we drove along the old Route 66. We could decide to either take the interstate or the old Route if there were novel things to see.
I know you are basically looking for "best route" but as they say, it's not all in the destination.

[Edmund]

We stayed at Wild Bill RV Park in Boise City last May. Definitely nothing fancy but it is the only game in town + there isn't much in Boise City.

[schrederman]

We did it in 2 days about 12 years ago. We stopped overnight in Ft. Collins... I was younger, then...

[Rstrahan]

Raton has a truck bypass near the top where you can bypass the crest. But coming down off Raton is STEEP. I have done it in a truck, not fun. Alternately, go up to Amarillo, then stay on 287, running up through Oklahoma and eastern Colorado, staying out of the mountains. You will pick up US 40 east of Colorado Springs, into Denver. Then 25 up to Cheyenne. From there, you can pick any of three routes into Yellowstone. A bit further, but US highways, should be good.

[Green Drake]

We made the trip last Aug. - Sep. from DFW. First time with the rig and being a little nervous about the availability of fuel caused us to take the 3 1/2 day route up thru Salina, KS, Strasbourg, Rock Springs (via Cheyenne) to Yellowstone. Used all KOA's enroute. Salinas and Rock Springs were very good, Strasbourg was good. All the folks were very nice and helpful. Came home the same way. Now that we are veterans, so to speak, we would probably go thru Rawlins vs Rock Springs, as someone mentioned earlier. The full days were long days for us. Colter Bay was first rate, as was Fishing Bridge but it was a tight back-in for a 5th wheel. The boat tour on Jackson Lake was spectacular! Finding diesel fuel along the route was not a problem. Safe Trip.

g

[Rstrahan]

When we were younger, we would drive from Denver to Dallas, straight through. Can't do that any more. And we don't drive the MH as fast either.

Plan on 2 1/2 days for every 2 days of car driving, won't be disappointed in the time it takes.

[Fufys]

Coming from Kilgore ,We have been both ways last time stayed at Amarillo Ranch RV, then to Lamar (col) Sportsman RV, then to AB Camping RV in Cheyenne, then Sleeping Bear RV in Lander, and then on to Tetons. We have pulled our 5er across Raton without any problems. We stayed at the rv park on top of the pass and it was nice.My only regret is that we didn't stay longer at Yellowstone, 3 days was not enough!

[rockport]

Originally Posted by Fufys

Coming from Kilgore ,We have been both ways last time stayed at Amarillo Ranch RV, then to Lamar (col) Sportsman RV, then to AB Camping RV in Cheyenne, then Sleeping Bear RV in Lander, and then on to Tetons. We have pulled our 5er across Raton without any problems. We stayed at the rv park on top of the pass and it was nice.My only regret is that we didn't stay longer at Yellowstone, 3 days was not enough!

I have pulled over Raton Pass last year going to Colorado Springs. I think I will take the 287 route this time. Mapquest shows getting off 25 north of Denver and going through Fort Collins on 287 again into Laramie WY. Wondering what that stretch is like or if I should stay on 25 up to Cheyenne. Then head west.

[burse]

We plan to make that trip this spring. Retired and enjoying so this 2,000 mile trip will be 7 or more days from SC. We usually leisure along 250 to 300 miles per day stopping every 2 hours to walk around. Last 12 hour continuous day ended in hospital with circulation problems. We love to drive old US Routes for scenery. We've logged about 75,000 miles pulling the rig since 2009. Thanks for sharing your favorite campsites.

[Portapower10]

We are going to be doing this trip from the St. Louis area in July and are really looking forward to it. Thanks for posting the link for the good sales routing service.



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[DKRITTER]

We are from Haslet right up the road and took a good portion of this trip last summer, we went to Saratoga Wyoming which is west of Laramie and south of Rawlins. So the last bit we can’t comment on.

We took two different routes but in each case the major spots were DFW, Amarillo, Denver and Cheyenne. On the way back we avoided Denver which we regret.

On the way up we went to Lubbock for to see family then to Amarillo up to Dumas and turned west for Raton. We spent the night at the Raton Pass Camp & Café RV Park near the crest of the pass and it was one of the highlights of the trip, you can see all of NM from there. The mule deer at the back of the trailer in the morning were cool. The elevation is about 8000 feet so it is a climb from DFW. (This also could easily be cut into a two day drive from DFW to Raton, I think it's 550 miles.)

The next morning late we went north on I-25 through Denver (pay the toll and go around) and stayed for a few days in Fort Collins. After Fort Collins we went north to Cheyenne and west on I-80 then cut south to Saratoga just before Rawlins.

This was a very pleasant trip for us and we pulled a LaCrosse 327RES with a F250 and had no real challenges.

The trip back was a different story however. We started back the same way up to 80 then over to 25, we had received some advice to avoid Denver so as we got to about Greely on 25 we turned east on 34 which was about 2 hours of light to light to light. We took 34 to I-76 then turned south in Brush on 71 which turns out is a country road (not a fun ride) we stopped in Limon at the KOA. It was very sparse but was ok for an overnight.
We took 287 to Lamar oh, by the way if you want to discover feed yards the largest feed yards I have ever seen and smelled run from Greely to Lamar. South of Lamar you hit the Oklahoma panhandle, did you know Oklahoma spends very little money to maintain roads but there is a bit of history as this is smack dab in the middle of the dust bowl. Then down to Amarillo for a few days as we had some business there then home.

I realize there is a bit of sarcasm here but we prefer a smooth ride for the most part. The Lamar-Limon route was rough and we could barely breathe due to wind conditions in Lamar when we stopped for fuel.

If we go back this year we will definitely go through will go through Raton both ways.

[firedaniel]

We live just south of Dallas and are headed to Yellowstone mid June as well. We are meeting some friends from Portland there. I've just started planning the route. Looking forward to it!