Cabin Creek Campground
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $26From, per site
- Sites
- 15All of them booked ahead
- Season
- May 1 – September 30Open May 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Cabin Creek Campground is located near the Madison River, in southwestern Montana. It is just 25 minutes from West Yellowstone and Yellowstone National Park's west entrance. Visitors enjoy the area for its fishing, boating and hiking opportunities, as well as its close proximity to Yellowstone. Keep reading
Recreation
The Cabin Creek Trail begins at the campground. The 6-mile trail is open to hikers and horseback riders. Earthquake Lake can be accessed less than three miles from the campground. Fishing and canoeing are popular activities there. A visitor center is nearby, with interpretive displays and information on the 1959 earthquake and subsequent landslide that formed the lake on the Madison River. Hebgen Lake is considered Montana's premier still-water fishing lake. Anglers will find a healthy population of brown, cutthroat and rainbow trout. Boating and swimming are popular activities on the lake.
Facilities
The campground offers several single-family sites. Each site is equipped with a picnic table and campfire ring. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided.
Natural Features
The campground is situated across the road from the Madison River, between Hebgen and Earthquake Lakes. A mature pine and Douglas fir forest covers the campground, where plentiful grasses and summer wildflowers cover the forest floor.
Nearby Attractions
West Yellowstone offers dining, shopping and lodging options. The Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center is a popular attraction with live grizzlies, gray wolves and birds of prey, and a variety of educational exhibits and programs. Yellowstone National Park offers unparalleled wildlife viewing opportunities, breathtaking scenery and unique geological features. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.
What the agency tells you
Bears frequent the area; all food must be stored in approved containers and secured when campsite is unoccupied.
Click here for more information on the Gallatin 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.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Firewood is available for sale at host site for $10.00/bundle.
No RV Dump Station is located in any of the USFS campgrounds managed by ExplorUS in the Custer-Gallatin National Forest.
There are NO Shower facilities available at this campground.
Camping fee covers 2 vehicles or RV/Trailer with tow vehicle. An extra vehicle fee of $9.00 is charged for each additional vehicle per night of stay. If you have an extra vehicle, it must fit on the campsite parking spur.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 15
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 29 ft
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…with a picnic table and campfire ring. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Natural Features…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…and campfire ring. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Natural Features The campground is…”
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Backpacking
- Berry Picking
- Biking
- Birding
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- Mushroom Picking
- Stargazing
- Water access
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 244th darkest of 501 in MT
- Bortle 2
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 14
What you actually pay
“Additional vehicles will be assessed a $8.00/night extra vehicle fee upon arrival at your site.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $26 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
16 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 15 mapped sitesAll 16 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 15 of the 16 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| CABIN CREEK | 01 | standard nonelectric | 53 ft | 310 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 02 | standard nonelectric | 56 ft | 245 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 03 | standard nonelectric | 44 ft | 259 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 04 | standard nonelectric | 42 ft | 325 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 05 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 42 ft | 328 ft | $26 | |
| CABIN CREEK | 06 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 337 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 07 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | yes | 44 ft | 244 ft | $26 |
| CABIN CREEK | 08 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 62 ft | 193 ft | $26 | |
| CABIN CREEK | 09 | standard nonelectric | 80 ft | 140 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 10 | standard nonelectric | 79 ft | 124 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 11 | standard nonelectric | 79 ft | 127 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 12 | standard nonelectric | 29 ft | 101 ft | 184 ft | $26 | |
| CABIN CREEK | 13 Host | host pad | 40 ft | ||||
| CABIN CREEK | 14 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 408 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 15 | standard nonelectric | 79 ft | 438 ft | $26 | ||
| CABIN CREEK | 16 | standard nonelectric | 79 ft | 409 ft | $26 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It names it a host pad. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
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
Beaver Creek CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 1.6 mi
Beaver Creek Cabin (MT)Gallatin National Forest · 3.1 mi
Spring Creek CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 6.9 mi
Cabin Creek CabinCabin Creek Wildlife And Recreation Management Area · 7.2 mi
Cherry Creek CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 9.2 mi
Rainbow Point CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 10 miFrom West Yellowstone, travel 8 miles north on Highway 191, then 14 miles west on Highway 287.
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 May night 32°F, day 58°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 32°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 moreOutside the published season
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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Cabin Creek Campground 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 →