Ben Rover 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 28 of the next 30 nights read 16:36 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
Ben Rover Cabin is located 35 miles north of Columbia Falls, perched near the Wild and Scenic Flathead River. The rustic accommodations provide a delightful setting for photographing scenery, viewing wildlife and enjoying the peaceful sounds of nature. The cabin also provides access to a variety of activities, including hiking, fishing and boating the river. The cabin is generally accessible by vehicle, however, in winter, four-wheel drive vehicles with chains are strongly recommended. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities. The majority of the road from Columbia Falls to Ben Rover Cabin is gravel, so be prepared for dust during your drive and at the cabin. Keep reading
Recreation
Visitors to the cabin can enjoy fishing, canoeing and kayaking on the river. Floating from Polebridge to Glacier Rim is easy, as the section contains mostly Class I to II rapids. Cross country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling are popular activities enjoyed by winter visitors. Various designated snowmobile routes and flat areas are available nearby. Trails are available to hiking in good weather.
Facilities
A campfire pit with benches and a vault toilet are located outside, and the water source is a well with a hand pump. Indoor accommodations fit eight guests on two double beds, one bunk and two twin beds. Amenities include a propane cook stove, propane lights, a heater and a wood stove. The kitchen offers basic cooking pots, pans and eating utensils. Cleaning supplies are also provided. Guests will need to clean the cabin and carry out all trash before leaving. No electricity is available and guests are advised to bring food, bedding, a cooler, garbage bags, flashlights and all other basic camping gear. Water is not available December through March, so guests should bring plenty for drinking, cooking and cleaning. ( Click here for more cabin details. )
Natural Features
The cabin is set along the North Fork of the Flathead River near the western border of Glacier National Park. Aspen trees dot the property as it backs up to a stand of conifers. The front of the cabin opens up to a grassy field, offering views of the peaks of the Livingston Range in Glacier National Park.
Nearby Attractions
Glacier National Park is a short drive away and the Polebridge Mercantile, offering limited supplies, is just a half-mile up the road.
What the agency tells you
There is a maximum stay of three consecutive nights with a total of seven days per calendar year.
Grizzly bears frequent the area; use appropriate containers for food and garbage. Bring garbage bags and pack it out.
Pets and livestock are not allowed at the cabin.
Everything else this campground posts · 12
Check-in time is 2 p.m.; the combination lock code will be provided in the reservation confirmation letter.
Contact the Hungry Horse Glacier View Ranger District at (406) 387-3800, during office hours of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, for information and updates on weather and road conditions/closures.
Firewood is provided for heating purposes only; please restock firewood box prior to departure.
Firewood is available from October 1st to May 1st. Please do not use provided firewood in outside fire pit.
Tents, RVs, and campers are not allowed on premises.
Conserve propane by minimizing use of lights and setting the thermostat at 55 degrees when away from the cabin.
Visitors must clean cabin prior to departure; a fee will be charged if extra clean-up is needed. Check-out time is 1200.
Commercial use of cabin is prohibited.
Click here for more information on the Flathead National Forest.
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
This is a remote cabin that may be unoccupied for extended periods of time. Mice may be present in cabin - there are supplies to trap mice and remove safely in cabin. Please do your part to help mitigate rodents by picking up food crumbs, cleaning thoroughly, and trapping mice if they are present.
Water is not available from December 1 through March 31.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…A campfire pit with benches and a vault toilet are located outside, and the water source is a well…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “Facilities A campfire pit with benches and a vault toilet are located outside, and the water source is a well with a hand pump.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Night sky · 157th darkest of 501 in MT
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 16:36 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
1 campground has sites open within 30 miles, read 16:48 UTC. See them
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on two midweek nights after it as well. read 16:36 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 · 18
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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 1
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:48 UTC
- Many Glacier CampgroundGlacier National Park · 28 mi · 13 of 96 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 16:36 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 BEN ROVER CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 50 ft | 130 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
Quartz Creek CampgroundGlacier National Park · 4.2 mi
Bowman Lake CampgroundGlacier National Park · 5.3 mi
Schnaus CabinFlathead National Forest · 5.6 mi
Logging Creek CampgroundGlacier National Park · 6.4 mi
Ford CabinFlathead National Forest · 8.4 mi
Wurtz CabinFlathead National Forest · 9.3 miBen Rover Cabin is located 35 miles north of Columbia Falls, on North Fork Road (County Road 486). From Columbia Falls, travel north on Nucleus Avenue. Turn east at the stop sign, on Railroad Street. The road becomes the North Fork Road as it travels over the railroad overpass. At mile 35 on the North Fork Road, turn east one mile following signs to the town of Polebridge. Turn left (north) to Ben Rover Cabin which is a half-mile from Polebridge on the right. If you cross into Glacier National Park, you have gone too far. The majority of the road from Columbia Falls to Ben Rover Cabin is gravel, so be prepared for dust during your drive and at the cabin.
North Fork Road is gravel, intermittently plowed during the winter. A four-wheel-drive vehicle with chains is recommended in winter.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Polebridge, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 25°F, day 52°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 12°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
Ben Rover 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 Ben Rover Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Ben Rover Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Ben Rover 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. Ben Rover Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ben Rover 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 Ben Rover Cabin (Flathead 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 Ben Rover Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Ben Rover Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Ben Rover 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. Ben Rover Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ben Rover 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 Ben Rover Cabin (Flathead 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 Ben Rover Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Ben Rover Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Ben Rover 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. Ben Rover Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ben Rover 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 Ben Rover Cabin (Flathead National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com