Douglas 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 15:19 UTC
- A night
- $45From, per site
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Douglas Creek Cabin offers a great way to access the various seasonal activities available in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in western Montana. While hunting enthusiasts enjoy the cabin during bow and rifle seasons, it is popular for snowmobiling or cross-country skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer. The cabin is in a very remote location, giving anyone an outdoor recreational experience they will never forget. Access to the cabin is limited by weather conditions. Four-wheel drive is necessary in the winter. Excessive snowfall and wind can prohibit any vehicle from accessing the cabin and visitors will need to plan for cross-country skiing or snowmobiling three or more miles. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
Douglas Creek is a small stream at this location and does not support any sizeable fish. Fishing is popular in any of the mountain lakes in the vicinity, and many of them are stock by FWP. Access to the lakes will require hiking or driving various distances. The area is home to a variety of trails for hiking, but there are no designated trails near the cabin. A big game winter range and elk calving grounds are nearby, offering great wildlife viewing potential. Hunting for deer, elk and upland game birds is popular in the area. Guests also enjoy snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing in the surrounding areas during the winter.
Facilities
The one-room cabin has bunkbeds that sleep up to four people, a table, 4 chairs and a wood stove for heat. There is no electricity, plumbing or water available at the cabin. An outhouse is located just steps behind the cabin. There ample parking and room to turn a trailer in front of the cabin. A 2 burner Coleman stove, plates, bowls, silverware, basic utensils, french press, wash basins, sponges, rags, dishsoap, bleach, battery powered lantern (4 D batts), splitting maul, and hatchet are provided. Firewood, paper, and matches are usually available but cannot be guaranteed. Guests will need to bring water for cooking, cleaning, and drinking, bedding, personal items, propane, specialty cooking items, headlamps, batteries, matches/lighter, paper, garbage bags, and food. Please do not burn garbage in the woodstove. Newspaper and cured firewood only. A mop, broom and dust pan are provided and guests are required to carry out all trash. Guests are required to clean the facility prior to departure . Cell phone service is usually available at the cabin, gaining elevation improves service.
Natural Features
The rustic, remotely located cabin is adjacent to Douglas Creek, in the north end of the Flint Creek Range. It is situated in a grassy meadow, surrounded by mature evergreen trees. The cabin was built in the 1960s and was used as an administrative location for crews working in the area. The small and narrow Douglas Creek runs about 50 feet from the cabin through the cabin site. The Flints have abundant wildlife near the cabin, and it is not uncommon to see moose, deer, elk, mountain lions, or bears(grizzly and black). The area is popular for hunting of deer, elk and blue grouse. Dozens of alpine lakes in the range provide good fishing.
Nearby Attractions
Elk and Deer winter range north of the cabin and on Douglas Mountain. Historic cabin ruins on 5153 road 2 miles east of the cabin.
Charges & Cancellations
Reservations are nonrefundable unless extenuating circumstances warrant otherwise. Determination will be made on a case by case basis.
What the agency tells you
For questions and concerns, please call the Pintler Ranger District at (406) 859-3211, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The cabin remains locked; a confirmation email containing the lock combination will be sent after booking, please check the email for the combo. Feel free to call the ranger station to confirm the code prior to your booking.
Water is not available at this cabin. You must bring your own supply.
This facility is located in a remote location. Vehicle access cannot be guaranteed at any time due to ever-changing weather and road conditions.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Be Bear Aware; for more information about recreating in bear country, please visit http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/sierra/home/?cid=stelprdb5324172.
Hantavirus; guests should be aware of the risk of exposure to Hantavirus while staying in the cabin. Please visit http://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/hps/transmission.html for more information about Hantavirus.
All food and garbage must be packed out.
A map may be helpful for locating this facility. Visit the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest website at http://www.fs.usda.gov/bdnf for more information. Maps are available at each Ranger District Office.
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- “An outhouse is located just steps behind the cabin.”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…be guaranteed. Guests will need to bring water for cooking, cleaning, and drinking, bedding,…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Forest Service says
- Yes
Full this Saturdayread 15:19 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Tue, Oct 20. read 15:19 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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($45), 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.
“Reservations are nonrefundable unless extenuating circumstances warrant otherwise. Determination will be made on a case by case basis.” · this campground’s own terms
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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:19 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 DOUGLAS CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 58 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
Doney CabinDeerlodge National Forest · 8.5 mi
Racetrack CabinDeerlodge National Forest · 15 miRacetrack Campground and Picnic AreaDeerlodge National Forest · 18 mi
Cable Mountain CampgroundDeerlodge National Forest · 20 mi
Flint Creek CampgroundDeerlodge National Forest · 20 mi
Lodgepole Campground (on Georgetown Lake, Montana)Deerlodge National Forest · 21 miFrom Hall, travel south on Highway 1 for about 3 miles to Douglas Creek. Take Forest Road 707 and continue approximately 7 miles to the cabin. Maps may be purchased by calling the Pintler Ranger District.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Maxville, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 57°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December 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 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
Douglas 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 Douglas Creek Cabin, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Douglas Creek Cabin, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Douglas 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. Douglas Creek Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Douglas 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 Douglas Creek Cabin (Deerlodge 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 Douglas Creek Cabin, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Douglas Creek Cabin, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Douglas 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. Douglas Creek Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Douglas 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 Douglas Creek Cabin (Deerlodge 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 Douglas Creek Cabin, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Douglas Creek Cabin, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Douglas 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. Douglas Creek Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Douglas 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 Douglas Creek Cabin (Deerlodge National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com
How we know this · 4
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“…to clean the facility prior to departure . Cell phone service is usually available at the cabin, gaining elevation improves service. Natural…”