Canyon Creek 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 · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Canyon Creek Cabin is located in the middle of an old mining district. Historic sites that can be explored on foot or on a bike are nearby. A variety of trails exist in the area, as does abundant wildlife. The cabin is a quaint location for guests to enjoy the scenic Pioneer Mountains in southwestern Montana. The cabin is accessible by a four-wheel drive or high clearance vehicle, depending on conditions. Snowmobiles, skis or snowshoes may be necessary during the months between December and April each year. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
A variety of old roads exist in the area, providing plentiful hiking and biking opportunities. A trail climbs 5 miles up to a group of glacial lakes in the Pioneer Mountains, and can be accessed near the ranch on Forest Road 7401. Charcoal kilns, which date back to mining days, are situated in the area near the cabin, as another point of exploration. Hunting is a popular activity. Canyon Creek is available for fishing. Anglers might see brook, rainbow and cutthroat trout, among other species, in the cold creek. Fishing is also available in the lakes in the area. The trails and roadways provide excellent snowmobiling, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing in the winter. Guests must realize the potential for avalanche danger, and carry and know how to use proper backcountry equipment, including a beacon, shovel and probe while recreating (learn about avalanche danger ).
Facilities
The small wood cabin can accommodate four people and is equipped with bunkbeds. A fold-down table and folding chairs are also provided, as well as a wood stove for heat. Firewood is also available but is not guaranteed. A variety of equipment is available inside the cabin, including a saw, an axe and some dishes and pans. A broom, dust pan, shovel, bucket and a propane stove may also be available. The cabin has no electricity or running water. An outside vault toilet is provided. Guests will need to bring water for drinking, cooking and cleaning, as well as bedding, matches, food, propane fuel canisters and necessary cooking equipment, among other amenities. Water from the creek must be treated before drinking or cooking use. Guests are asked to replenish the split firewood supply and clean the cabin prior to leaving.
Natural Features
The cabin was built in 1930 to be used as a guard station. It is situated at the base of a sheer cliff in the eastern Pioneer Mountain Range at an elevation of about 7,300 feet. The Wise River runs nearby and a mountain creek is adjacent to the cabin. The cliff and surrounding area is home to many mountain goats. Moose can usually be found in nearby willow bottoms. During the winter, deer and elk can be seen on their winter range located up and down-canyon from the cabin. Black bears also frequent the area.
Nearby Attractions
A short drive takes visitors to Vipond Park where there are spectacular wildflowers in early summer. Glendale, an old smelter town, is nearby. There isn't much left of Glendale, just a few old buildings, the red brick smelter stack and the foundations of many buildings. Two cemeteries are located nearby. Most of the area around Glendale is privately owned.
What the agency tells you
This facility is located in a remote and wild area; before making a reservation, become aware of bear, water and weather safety (including avalanche danger)
Drinking water is not available.
All garbage and food must be packed out.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Learn more about the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest
Guests should be aware that there is a risk of exposure to hantavirus when visiting remote cabins; click here to learn more
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.
Each visitor group is responsible for cleaning and disinfecting the cabin. The Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF checks on the cabin intermittently during the reservation season and cannot guarantee the sterilization of facilities or prevention of disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the latest on COVID-19 in Montana, please refer to the Governor's Corona Virus Task Force: https://covid19.mt.gov/
The reservation cabin is locked between visitors. The padlock code will be provided to you when you confirm you reservation. You do not need to call the Wisdom District Office to obtain the cabin padlock code.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…electricity or running water. An outside vault toilet is provided. Guests will need to bring water for…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…toilet is provided. Guests will need to bring water for drinking, cooking and cleaning, as well as…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:27 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
1 campground has sites open within 30 miles, read 15:29 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Tue, Oct 20. 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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 1
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 15:29 UTC
- Price Creek Campground (MT)Beaverhead National Forest · 17 mi · 1 of 1 site-night open
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.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| AREA CANYON CREEK CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 361 ft | $45 |
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
Pettengill CampgroundBeaverhead National Forest · 8.1 miFourth of July CampgroundBeaverhead National Forest · 8.4 mi
Boulder Creek CampgroundBeaverhead National Forest · 8.7 mi
Lodgepole CampgroundBeaverhead National Forest · 9.4 miFrom Melrose, travel west on Forest Road 187 for about 13 miles, then continue southwest for 6 miles on Forest Road 7401. Four-wheel drive or high clearance vehicles are required to access the cabin. Depending on conditions, skis and snowmobiles may be necessary to complete the route. Maps may be purchased by calling the Dillon Ranger District.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Dewey, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 23°F, day 56°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 7°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 Augusts are colder than the August 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
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Canyon Creek 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 Canyon Creek Cabin, Dillon Field Office, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Canyon Creek Cabin, Dillon Field Office, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Canyon Creek 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. Canyon Creek Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Canyon Creek 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 Canyon Creek Cabin (Dillon Field Office, 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 Canyon Creek Cabin, Dillon Field Office, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Canyon Creek Cabin, Dillon Field Office, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Canyon Creek 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. Canyon Creek Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Canyon Creek 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 Canyon Creek Cabin (Dillon Field Office, 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 Canyon Creek Cabin, Dillon Field Office, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Canyon Creek Cabin, Dillon Field Office, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Canyon Creek 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. Canyon Creek Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Canyon Creek 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 Canyon Creek Cabin (Dillon Field Office, Montana) via campanac.com