CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
U.S. Forest Service · MT

Bear Creek Campground and Picnic Area

The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
Season
Year-roundOpen year-round
Drawn from the record · 6,330 ft · 0% tree cover · Middle Fork Bear Creek within reach · Bortle 2 sky
6,330 ftElevation
1,104 ftWater · Middle Fork Bear Creek
7.4 miSW of Big Sky, MT
0%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 295th darkest of 501 in MT
Open year-roundToday

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Bear Creek Campground is a nice summer or fall destination for those looking to camp, hike, or picnic. At an elevation of 6,350 feet, this campground contains 12 designated campsites. There is a group size limit within the wilderness boundary here of no more than 15 people and 20 head of stock, and stock are not allowed on the south side of the creek. No camping is authorized at the trailhead and certified weed-free hay is required. This campground has vault toilets and drinking water is available in spring/summer only. No garbage service is provided, so pack out what you pack in. Keep reading

Bear-resistant food storage boxes are available. The campground is located at the trailhead for the Bear Creek Loop Trail in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness, which is suitable for hikers, hunters, and horseback riders. The campground accommodates both horse (stock) and family camping. The maximum recommended trailer length for the campground is 28 feet. Stay limit is 16 days. Food and refuse storage requirements are in effect and enforced at this campground. There is not a designated day-use picnic area at this site.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…hay is required. This campground has vault toilets and drinking water is available in spring/summer…”
Drinking water
Yes
“…This campground has vault toilets and drinking water is available in spring/summer only. No garbage…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek
Source: Stated in the agency description

Phone before you drive

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 4

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
There is a $15.00 per night fee for overnight camping.
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate45.16260, -111.55646

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Tonight40°Partly Cloudy
Saturday57°Mostly Sunny
Saturday Night38°Partly Cloudy
Sunday57°Sunny

NWS forecast for Big Sky, MT

Source: National Weather Service, TFX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 25°F, day 53°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 9°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°0°

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.

Measured at: BIG SKY 2WNW, MT (USC00240775), 14 miles away and 260 ft higher
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Ryan Zinke, official portrait

Bear Creek Campground and Picnic Area 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now.
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.052 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 501 rated federal campgrounds in Montana · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026