Off-Road Vehicle parking areas at Greys River campgrounds
by Bridger-Teton National Forest
July 1, 2009
District Ranger Jay Dunbar announces that recreation staff on the Greys River Ranger District of the Bridger-Teton National Forest is creating off-road vehicle (ORV) parking areas outside campground perimeter fences. The parking areas are an attempt to limit dust, noise and safety concerns in the District’s developed campgrounds.
Many campers choose to stay in dispersed sites outside the fee campgrounds and often drive their ORVs along District roads. Along the way, they may stop at the fee campgrounds to use the toilets or fill up a water bottle. Many off-road vehicles are small, and extremely difficult to see from large recreational campers or pickup trucks towing campers, creating a serious safety concern within the confined roads in the developed campgrounds.
Signs will be placed along the outside perimeters of the campgrounds designating areas where visitors can park their ORVs or trailers. Dispersed campers are still welcome to walk into the campgrounds to use the toilets and get water. Campers in the fee campgrounds will still be able to park a trailer with ORVs within the campground as well, on a limited basis. Sites are designed for one towing vehicle and one trailer, which could be a truck with ORV trailer and space for setting up a tent. A self-contained camper towing an ORV trailer could also meet the space limitations. Alternatively, campers using a truck and recreational camp trailer may park their ORV trailer in an empty site within the campground, but must pay the camp fee for that additional site.
Campgrounds where the parking areas will be designated include Forest Park, Moose Flat, Murphy, Swift Creek and Allred Flats. Cottonwood Lake ORV trailer parking will be provided at the lakeside day-use area. Off-road vehicles are still allowed within Cottonwood Campground in order to access the motorized trailhead on the northeast corner of the campground. Signs will direct motorized recreationists to the east loop, leaving the west loop of that campground, where corrals are provided, for horse-based recreationists.
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