CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
Bureau of Land Management · Malta Field Office · MT

Camp Creek Campground

First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 4,020 ft · 65% tree cover · Bortle 1 sky
4,020 ftElevation
1.6 miWater · an unnamed pond
6 miSE of Hays, MT
65%Tree cover
Bortle 1Night sky · 9th darkest of 501 in MT

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Camp Creek Recreation Area, located in the scenic Little Rockies, consists of Camp Creek Campground, Horse Corral Campground, and Buffington Day Use Area. A system of trails leads from the main campground, making this a popular destination for hikers, birders and OHV enthusiasts. Several small bass and trout fisheries are located within 30-minutes drives. The nearby town of Zortman offers a store, restaurant, fuel, and gold panning opportunities. This is a Watchable Wildlife area as well as a featured stop on Montana's Northeastern Plains Birding Trail. Highlighted species include Clark's nutcracker, red crossbill and red-naped sapsucker. Facilities/Services: 20 camping units, restrooms, drinking water, picnic shelters, tables and fire-rings, garbage collection.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Facilities

Drinking water
Yes
“…20 camping units, restrooms, drinking water, picnic shelters, tables and fire-rings, 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 · Aug 23, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

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.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itBureau of Land Managementthe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 4

What you actually pay

The sign priceBureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management 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.
No charge for parking and day use, $10/night for camping at Camp Creek and Horse Corral (no overnight camping in Buffington Day Use Area), no reservations.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate47.92306, -108.50556

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today70°Mostly Sunny
Tonight42°Mostly Cloudy
Sunday55°Sunny
Sunday Night39°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Zortman, MT

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 32°F, day 60°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 10°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

100°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: ROY 8 NE, MT (USC00247228), 34 miles away and 935 ft lower
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

Troy Downing, official portrait

Camp Creek Campground 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 →

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: Bureau of Land Management publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
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: 0.0093 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 BLM’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 place of any size: inside Zortman, MT (a census designated place). Straight line.
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