Agency-listedBLM · dispersedUnpriced · confirm
Gardner Mountain Wsa
Drive-up · Bureau of Land Management · WY · 43.78130, -106.97186
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →Bureau of Land Management lists this site. On most of their ground you can camp away from developed sites pretty much anywhere — so treat this as a known-good spot, not the only one allowed. The unit sets stay limits and how far off road and water you must be. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Gardner Mountain Wsa
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 6,568 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Gardner Mountain WsaNIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Gardner Mountain Wsa · Bureau of Land Management · WY
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- FFuel17 mi
- GGrocery17 mi
- WWater20 mi
- DDump27 mi
- @Mail40 mi
- HHardware42 mi
- MMechanic42 mi
- +Urgent care51 mi
- EVEV fast charger63 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 20-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 17 mi out, the nearest EV fast charger is a 63-mi run (and back).
Not within 60 mi: Propane. Plan those before you head up.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Gardner Mountain Wsa
Access
Drive-up
Land
Bureau of Land Management · dispersed
Elevation
6,568 ft
Ground slope
26.9% · steep
State
WY
Coordinates
43.78130, -106.97186
Cost
Unpriced — no source gives a price; assume it may cost something and confirm before you go
Nearby & resupply — around Gardner Mountain Wsa · Bureau of Land Management · WY (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureBeartrap Creek · ~0.2 mi · USGS: perennial stream
- Also mapped (OSM)North Fork Red Fork Powder River (stream) · mapped within 1.6 mi
- Nearest townBarnum · ~8.7 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- Fuelnone within 30 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- Dump station~27.1 mi
- GroceriesKaycee General Store · ~17.2 mi
- Mapping is thin out hereAn empty row means nothing is mapped within that radius — not that nothing exists. Small stores, seasonal resorts and single fuel pumps out here often never make it onto the map. Treat these as unconfirmed and ask locally.
EV charging — from Gardner Mountain Wsa · Bureau of Land Management · WY — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger62.9 mi straight-line W — Wind River Canyon Whitewater & Fly Fishing, Thermopolis, WY · EV Connect · CCS · 2 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · none within 50 · 10 within 100 · 18 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)70.7 mi — Sheridan, WY - Tesla Supercharger, Sheridan
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO72.7 mi — SHERIDAN MOTORS CPE250, Sheridan
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)50.9 mi — Washakie Museum, Worland - Tesla Destination · Tesla Destination · J1772, NACS (Tesla) · 1 Level 2 port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-08-27 · hours: 24 hours daily. Open to all vehicles.
- Also listed, not counted aboveNACS-only Level 2 — Quality Inn Buffalo - Tesla Destination, Buffalo, 42.0 mi · NACS (Tesla) · hours: 24 hours daily. Open to Teslas only. · AFDC lists it “Free”
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 462372 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Gardner Mountain Wsa · Bureau of Land Management · WY — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletOutlaw Cave Vault Toilet · ~13.3 mi S · BLM
- RestroomMiddle Fork Powder River Rr · ~16.4 mi SW · BLM
- Vault / pit toiletDoyle · ~20.2 mi N · USFS
- Highway rest areaI25 MM 274 Turnout eastbound · ~22.0 mi NE
Coming out here — Gardner Mountain Wsa · Bureau of Land Management · WY
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Beartrap Creek as a perennial stream, ~0.2 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 26.9% — steep. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
- Assume no services at all. Most dispersed camping in a national forest has none: no tap, no power, no dump, often no toilet. Everything you need, you bring.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Gardner Mountain Wsa elsewhere
Other camps near Gardner Mountain Wsa
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Ed O. Taylor WHMA — camping zone~10.3 mi
- Ed O. Taylor WHMA — camping zone #3~11.4 mi
- Ed O. Taylor WHMA — camping zone #2~12.9 mi
- Ed O. Taylor WHMA — camping zone 3~13.2 mi
The unit that manages Gardner Mountain Wsa
Gardner Mountain Wsa is in the Buffalo Field Office, High Plains District, Bureau of Land Management. Stay limits, permits, road closures and fire restrictions are set there, not at the campsite — check before you go. Its page maps every camp in it.
Snow, and when this opens
The nearest automatic snow station is Bear Trap Meadow at 8,200 ft, about 9 miles away. It sits about 1,632 ft higher than this camp, so treat it as a guide rather than a reading for this spot. We do not repeat a depth here, because any number we stored would be stale by the time you read it — the station publishes today's.
How we know this — Gardner Mountain Wsa
Source
Bureau of Land Management recreation data
Confidence
Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.
How it was placed
BLM RIDB record, agency-listed. Its fee field is empty -- no fee statement -- so the cost is unpriced (field read 2026-09-19). Access not field-checked (assumed drive-up).
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Gardner Mountain Wsa
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Gardner Mountain Wsa
Winter vs summer roads →Finding water out here →What “dispersed” means here →Getting unstuck →All field notes →