Basin Station 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 16:27 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 12 notices
In the agency’s own words
Basin Station Cabin is a primitive, rustic, two-room structure located in the Hebgen Lake Ranger District of the Custer Gallatin National Forest. The cabin is open year-round. The adjacent road is heavily traveled. Snow conditions in the fall, winter, and spring may limit access by vehicle. Guests can snowshoe, ski, or snowmobile to the cabin up to three miles from the nearest available parking. This cabin is parking accessible by vehicle during warmer months. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and they must bring several of their own amenities. During the spring and fall, guests are encouraged to call the Hebgen Lake Ranger District at (406) 823-6961 for road conditions and access to the cabin. Keep reading
Recreation
Basin Station is surrounded by hiking, horseback riding, and mountain biking trails as well as ATV/UTV and motorcyles routes subject to seasonal restrictions and delayed open dates. Please contact the Hebgen Lake Ranger District to obtain open dates. Horses are not allowed at the cabin. The horse corral is used administratively by the USDA Forest Service. Winter activities in the area include cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, and snowshoeing. Nearby Hebgen Lake offers opportunities for fishing, boating, and hunting. A public boat launch with two docks is located about two miles from the cabin at Lonesomehurst Campground and additional access to the lake is available through surrounding day use areas.
Facilities
This is a primitive cabin. It sleeps four people and has a six persons maximum per group at cabin site. There is a seven day maximum stay per group. A wood stove is available for heat, and an old-fashioned wood cook stove is also available with firewood provided October 1st - May 31st for indoor use only . Basic amenities are provided such as an axe, shovel, and a table with chairs. The cabin is equipped with a double-bed platform and one set of bunk bed platforms, all equipped with mattresses. No water or electricity is available at the cabin. Guests must either bring drinking water or treat water they retrieve from natural sources. It is also recommended that guests bring their own cooking stoves. Garbage bags are needed to pack out trash. A stock pot is provided for boiling water. It is strongly recommended that campers bring their own back country cookware and dishes for use. Items such as bedding, flashlights or lanterns, first aid supplies, and extra toilet paper are also not available at the cabin.
Natural Features
The cabin sits in an open meadow in the Upper Madison River Valley with views of distant evergreen forests and mountain peaks on all sides. It is situated within a couple miles of the South Fork Arm of the Madison River; just down the road from Hebgen Lake. The area around Basin Station Cabin is grizzly bear habitat, it's also home to bison, elk, pronghorn, and other wildlife.
Nearby Attractions
The cabin is approximately nine miles from West Yellowstone, MT, home of the West Gate to Yellowstone National Park. Other attractions include; Hebgen Lake, Earthquake lake and the Earthquake Lake Visitor Center, and Henry's Lake State Park across the Idaho Border.
What the agency tells you
Please be aware that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service is not cleaning this rental cabin between user visits. To protect health and safety for all cabin visitors, we recommend you clean all "high touch surfaces" when you arrive and before you leave. Cleaning supplies are not provided; you are expected to bring your own. Leave nothing behind - pack it in, pack it out. Please take any garbage, food, books, and personal items with you. Immediately report any unsanitary conditions to the local Ranger Station.
Make sure to have the lock combination for the cabin door; the combination code to the cabin is included in the confirmation e-mail or letter.
Grizzly bears frequent the area; store all attractants (coolers, food, beverages, stock feed, garbage, toiletrie, etc,) inside the cabin. Hebgen Lake Ranger staff will be patrolling for compliance with the Food Storage Order in the cabin vicinity throughout the season.
Everything else this campground posts · 9
Water is not available in the cabin. Guests need to bring their own or be prepared to treat water taken from a natural source.
No garbage service. Please bring garbage bags and pack out all trash and belongings.
Candles are not permitted inside the cabin.
Stock use at the cabin is not allowed due to lack of adequate space and because the adjacent pasture is administratively used to house Forest Service stock.
Please keep the fence gate between the cabin and barn closed. There may be horses in the pasture adjacent to the cabin and they could escape if the gate is not closed.
Guests should be aware that there is a risk of exposure to hantavirus when visiting remote cabins.
FIREWOOD ROUNDS IN WOODSHED ARE LIMITED TO INDOOR USE ONLY. Availability of firewood cannot be guaranteed.Limited firewood supply is provided for INDOOR USE ONLY (October 1 -May 31) Not for outdoor campfires. Firewood is not provided from June 1st to September 30th.
Do not leave pets unattended.
Weather conditions vary. Please check forcast and road conditions before your visit.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 18 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…at the cabin. Guests must either bring drinking water or treat water they retrieve from natural sources.…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Water sports
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Night sky · 327th darkest of 501 in MT
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 16:27 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Thu, Oct 22. read 16:27 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 16:27 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 BASIN STATION CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 18 ft | 143 ft | $65 |
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
Lonesomehurst CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 1.8 mi
Cherry Creek CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 3.2 mi
Rainbow Point CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 5.5 mi
Spring Creek CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 5.5 mi
Baker's Hole CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 6.6 mi
Bakers Hole (MT)Gallatin National Forest · 7.3 miSummer directions from West Yellowstone: Proceed west on U.S. Highway 20 for approximately 6.5 miles. Turn right on Denny Creek Road and continue approximately two miles north. The cabin is located on the right side of the road.
Winter directions from West Yellowstone: Proceed west on U.S. Highway 20 for approximately 7.5 miles. Parking is available at the Buttermilk Trailhead, located approximately one mile up Highway 20 from Denny Creek Road, to the left. Guests will need to ski, snowmobile, or snowshoe one mile down Highway 20 from the Buttermilk Trailhead parking lot, and proceed along the two mile trail to the cabin.
During the spring and fall, guests are encouraged to call the Hebgen Lake Ranger District at (406) 823-6961 for road conditions and access to the cabin. Road conditions can vary greatly.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Hebgen Lake Estates, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 28°F, day 51°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 4°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Basin Station Cabin is in Montana’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Ryan Zinke (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 moneyRyan K. ZinkeU.S. Representative · Montana’s 1st 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 Basin Station Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Basin Station Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Basin Station 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Basin Station Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Basin Station 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 Basin Station Cabin (Gallatin 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 Basin Station Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Basin Station Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Basin Station 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Basin Station Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Basin Station 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 Basin Station Cabin (Gallatin 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 Basin Station Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Basin Station Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Basin Station 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Basin Station Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Basin Station 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 Basin Station Cabin (Gallatin National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com