Bar Gulch Cabin
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:37 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Bar Gulch Cabin is located in the Big Belt Mountain Range in Helena National Forest. The cabin was originally constructed in the 1930s on Forest Service lands to be used for mining purposes. Instead, it was used for recreational purposes and issued a special use permit, which was transferred to several owners until it was donated to the Forest Service in 1988. Today the cabin is a rustic getaway for guests seeking relaxation and recreation in west-central Montana. It is accessible by car, but snow removal is not provided in winter. The cabin offers several amenities, but guests should be prepared to bring some of their own supplies and gear. Keep reading
Recreation
Guests at the cabin can step out to several hiking opportunities right out the backdoor. Belt Divide Trail and Bar Gulch Trail are favorites in the area. Bar Gulch Trail is actually an old road through a timbered gulch, and is mainly used for hunting. The Ridge Trail, located along the crest of the Big Belt Mountains, is a favorite for those on foot, offering expansive views of the surrounding mountain ranges as well as overnight camping opportunities. Guests can take advantage of boating and fishing at Canyon Ferry Lake, which is only five miles away. The lake offers excellent fishing opportunities for rainbow trout, perch, ling and walleye. The wildlife viewing near the lake is quite impressive as well. It is one of the best in the country for viewing large concentrations of bald eagles. A wildlife management area at the end of the reservoir is home to a colony of terns and pelicans.
Facilities
The small, single-room cabin can accommodate up to six people with two bunkbeds and a full-sized bed with mattresses. The cabin has a skylight, an antique cook stove, propane lanterns and a wood stove for heat. The kitchen is equipped with a table and chairs, a propane stove, some cooking utensils and cookware. A picnic table, campfire ring and accessible pit toilet are outside. An axe and snow shovel are available. Firewood may be stocked at the cabin, but it is not guaranteed. The cabin does not have electricity, running water or indoor plumbing. Guests must bring a sufficient amount of water for drinking, cooking and washing during their stay. Propane is not provided for the lanterns or propane stove, so guests must bring one or two small cylinders. Bringing an additional light source is also recommended. Other supplies to bring include sleeping bags, linens, towels, cooking gear, dish soap, matches, first aid kit, toilet paper and garbage bags. Guests are expected to pack out all trash and food and clean the cabin before leaving. No firewood provided from June 1st - August 31.
Natural Features
Bar Gulch Cabin sits in a grassy, open clearing surrounded by a canopy of mixed-conifer forest. The area around the cabin offers a variety of landscapes, from river banks to subalpine terrain. Valley bottoms, dense forests, meadows and barren ridges are mixed with streams, rivers and lakes. The area offers unique opportunities for viewing wildlife. Elk, bighorn sheep, mule and white-tailed deer, black bear, moose and a variety of birds are commonly seen. The more elusive badger, wolverine, mountain lion and lynx find habitat here as well.
What the agency tells you
Entry to the cabin is by combination lock, code provided in reservation email confirmation.
Please print and be prepared to present your confirmation letter to officials
Please clean cabin upon departure
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Make sure cabin is locked upon departure
Keep open fires within the campfire ring
Amenities such as cookware, cooking utensils, firewood and lanterns cannot be guaranteed
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Pit Toilets
- “…table, campfire ring and accessible pit toilet are outside. An axe and snow shovel are available.…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Guests must bring a sufficient amount of water for drinking, cooking and washing during their stay.”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Swimming
- Winter sports
Full this Saturdayread 16:37 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:37 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:37 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA BAR GULCH | 01 | cabin nonelectric | 942 ft | $25–$50 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Jo Bonner Campground4.6 mi
Court Sheriff Campground4.8 mi
Chinamen's Campground4.8 miVigilante CampgroundHelena National Forest · 5.0 mi
Cave Point Group Use Area5.0 mi
Hellgate Campground5.5 miBar Gulch Cabin is located 24 miles from Helena and 30 miles from Townsend on Magpie Road (#425). From Helena, take Canyon Ferry Road over the dam, past Kim's Marina. Continuing east, watch for a left-hand turn onto Magpie Road. From this intersection, proceed up Magpie Road 3.9 miles. Turn left on Bar Gulch Road. Continue on Bar Gulch Road approximately .25 miles to the cabin. The cabin is located on the left.
Access to the cabin is good and does not usually require a 4-wheel drive vehicle but the Forest Service does not provide snow removal to the cabin.
Please respect the private lands that are near the cabin site.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for York, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 58°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 14°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Bar Gulch Cabin is in Montana’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Troy Downing (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyTroy DowningU.S. Representative · Montana’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationSteve DainesU.S. Senator · Montana
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTim SheehyU.S. Senator · Montana
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Bar Gulch Cabin, Helena National Forest, Montana
Dear Troy Downing, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Bar Gulch Cabin, Helena National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Bar Gulch Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Bar Gulch Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Bar Gulch Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Bar Gulch Cabin (Helena National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Bar Gulch Cabin, Helena National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Bar Gulch Cabin, Helena National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Bar Gulch Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Bar Gulch Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Bar Gulch Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Bar Gulch Cabin (Helena National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Bar Gulch Cabin, Helena National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Bar Gulch Cabin, Helena National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Bar Gulch Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Bar Gulch Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Bar Gulch Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Bar Gulch Cabin (Helena National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com