Crippled Spider RV Park & Campground
20 Tent Sites, 1 Wagon
Crippled Spider RV Park and Campground sits on US Highway 20 in Thermopolis, Wyoming, in Hot Springs County—the self-designated hot spring capital of the world, where the largest mineral hot spring on Earth produces five million gallons of thermal water daily at the state-owned Hot Springs State Park. The campground's position in Thermopolis gives it an anchor attraction that is genuinely without parallel among thermal destinations in the United States: free public access to outdoor mineral pools at a state park within minutes of the campground, supplemented by the Wyoming Dinosaur Center and the Big Horn River's blue-ribbon trout fishery in a small, genuinely Western town that sees a fraction of the tourist traffic its natural assets would generate if it were more conveniently located.
Nineteen large full-hookup pull-through sites with 20, 30, and 50-amp service, grills, and fire pits accommodate RV campers. Five cabins provide enclosed accommodation. Tent sites complete the accommodation range. Glamping in restored period sheep wagons—the distinctive round-roofed portable shelters that Wyoming sheepherders used through the early twentieth century—provides a historically resonant accommodation option that distinguishes the campground from standard alternatives. An on-site animal zoo with buffalo, goats, turkeys, ducks, and other animals is a family attraction unique to the campground itself. Horse pens, horse paddocks, and an arena serve the equestrian guests and horse camping parties that the Wyoming ranch country surrounding Thermopolis regularly generates. An artesian water well drawing from the Big Horn Mountain aquifer provides a non-mineral fresh water source, and high-speed WiFi, a dog park, and dump station complete the infrastructure.
Hot Springs State Park, a short drive from the campground, is the anchor of Thermopolis's identity—the Bighorn Spring produces 2,202 gallons of mineral water per minute at 127 degrees Fahrenheit, fed through a system of cooling flumes into the state park's outdoor terraced pools and into the commercial bathhouses and the Big Springs free public pool, which provides mineral soaking access at no cost to any visitor. The park also maintains a bison herd on the valley floor and hiking trails along the Wind River canyon rim that provide views across the Bighorn Basin's geological drama—this is the landscape where the tilted strata of the Owl Creek Mountains record 600 million years of Earth's history in a stratigraphic column visible from the canyon overlooks.
The Wyoming Dinosaur Center, one of the most significant dinosaur research facilities in the American West, provides a museum experience built around the active excavation sites in the Bighorn Basin—the center's displays include some of the largest dinosaur specimens ever excavated in Wyoming, and the "dig for a day" program allows visitors to participate in actual paleontological fieldwork on active excavation sites near town. The Wind River Canyon Scenic Byway, south of Thermopolis, passes through a canyon where the Bighorn River cuts through strata ranging from Precambrian basement rock to Permian formations in one of the most complete geological cross-sections accessible by road in the United States.
Crippled Spider RV Park operates year-round in the Bighorn Basin climate where Thermopolis's position in a thermal valley moderates winter temperatures compared to the surrounding high-altitude terrain—the town is one of the warmest inhabited locations in Wyoming in winter, partly a function of the thermal spring activity and partly the sheltered basin position. Summer is peak season when the hot springs, dinosaur center, and Big Horn River combine to fill the campground with visitors from across the region, and fall brings the additional draw of elk season in the surrounding Bighorn Mountains.
from $20/night
