Challenge Cabin
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 23 mi
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 14 notices
In the agency’s own words
Challenge Cabin is available during the winter and is located about 60 miles southeast of Hungry Horse, in northwestern Montana. It provides a primitive escape for visitors who enjoy winter recreation. The cozy shelter awards visitors with beautiful mountain views, peaceful sounds of nature and virgin, white snow for great photography and snow play. Access to the cabin involves an 8-mile trek by hiking, skiing, snowshoeing or snowmobiling. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
Cross country skiing, snowmobiling and snowshoeing are popular activities enjoyed by visitors to the area. Reaching the cabin on the 8-mile access trail is part of the snow sport fun. Visitors might also catch a glimpse of any number of wildlife that lives in the area.
Facilities
The cabin can sleep up to five guests. It is equipped with a propane cook stove, lights, and a wood stove. Furnishings include a table and chairs, a bunk bed and a small loft where additional people can roll out sleeping bags. Basic cooking pots and utensils are supplied, but guests are encouraged to bring their own. Pets are allowed, but cleaning up after them is required. A vault toilet is provided outside the cabin. Firewood is included for heating in the wood stove. Guests should bring their own water for drinking, cooking and cleaning purposes, as well as food, bedding, flashlights, garbage bags and basic camp gear. Click here for more cabin details .
Natural Features
The cabin sits in a meadow surrounded by a stand of Douglas fir and pine trees, near Challenge Creek. The Hungry Horse Ranger District is bordered on the east by the Middle Fork of the Flathead River and Glacier National Park.
Nearby Attractions
The nearest grocery stores are in East Glacier and Hungry Horse. Both towns are about an hour-and-a-half drive, in addition to the trek from the cabin.
What the agency tells you
There is a maximum stay of three consecutive nights with a total of seven days per calendar year.
Water, electricity and sewer is not provided.
Check-out time is 1200 pm. Check-in time is 2 pm.
Everything else this campground posts · 11
Refunds will not be given due to inclement weather or road conditions.
Bears frequent the area; keep all food and garbage in appropriate containers inside the cabin.
The cabin remains locked; a combination lock code will be contained in the reservation confirmation letter.
Contact the Hungry Horse Ranger District at (406) 387-3800, during normal office hours (Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), for updates on weather and road conditions.
Please bring garbage bags and remove all trash prior to leaving the cabin.
Firewood is provided for heating purposes only; please replenish wood supply prior to departure.
Conserve propane by minimizing use of lights.
Visitors must clean cabin prior to departure; a fee will be charged if extra clean-up is needed.
Commercial use of cabin is prohibited.
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…cleaning up after them is required. A vault toilet is provided outside the cabin. Firewood is included…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…heating in the wood stove. Guests should bring their own water for drinking, cooking and cleaning purposes, as…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek, Meadow
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
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 · 16
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
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 CHALLENGE CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 159 ft | $50 |
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
Zips Place CabinFlathead National Forest · 4.5 miSummit CampgroundLewis & Clark National Forest · 6.3 mi
Devil Creek CampgroundFlathead National Forest · 6.3 mi
Two Medicine CampgroundGlacier National Park · 18 miPeter's Creek CampgroundFlathead National Forest · 19 miDevil's Corkscrew CampgroundFlathead National Forest · 19 miFrom Hungry Horse, travel east on Highway 2 for 51 miles, then 8 miles south on Skyland Road 569. Park in the plowed area along Highway 2, then hike, snowmobile, ski or snowshoe approximately 8 miles along the groomed trail. The cabin is not accessible by car.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Snowslip, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 32°F, day 49°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 15°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Challenge 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 →