Eagle Guard Station
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 16:32 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 16 notices
In the agency’s own words
Eagle Guard Station is located in high grasslands and surrounded by a scattered forest in the Elkhorn Mountains in west-central Montana. The former Eagle Creek Ranger Station was built by miner Richard Owen in 1895. While his family lived there, the area was in a booming gold rush. In 1908, the cabin was taken over by the Forest Service for administrative use. It is the oldest administrative log structure on the Helena National Forest, predating the establishment of the Forest. Today the cabin is a rustic retreat for guests seeking relaxation and recreation. The cabin is accessible by car, but the last 4 miles are only open to foot, horseback and cross-country ski traffic from December 2nd through May 15th. Several amenities are provided, but guests should be prepared to pack in some of their own supplies and gear. Keep reading
Recreation
Eagle Guard Station provides guests with outstanding opportunities for photography, fishing, hunting, and hiking. The area offers centralized access to the Elkhorn Mountains with numerous hiking trails and roads leading to the Elkhorn's historical resources. Popular hikes include those to Crow Creek Falls and Poe Park. An interpretive trail is accessible just beyond the cabin. When snow allows, skiing gives visitors an up-close look at concentrations of wintering elk.
Facilities
The entire site consists of the cabin, a woodshed, vault toilet, barn, horse corrals and a fire ring. The cabin can accommodate up to six people on three sets of bunk beds with mattresses. A wood stove provides heat and a propane camp stove can be used for cooking. The kitchen is equipped with a table and chairs, dishes, propane lantern, utensils and cookware. An axe and snow shovel are provided. Firewood may be available, but it is not guaranteed. There is no available potable water or electricity at this facility. Guests must bring a sufficient amount of water for drinking, cooking and washing, as well as one or two small propane canisters to use with the propane stove and lantern. Guests need to provide their own sleeping bags, flashlights, linens, towels, dish soap, matches, first aid kit, toilet paper and garbage bags. All trash and food should be packed out, and guests should clean the cabin before leaving. No firewood provided from June 1st - August 31.
Natural Features
Eagle Guard Station is situated on the southeast flanks of the Elkhorn Mountains in a beautiful open grassland setting, an outstanding location for viewing elk. Crow Creek Falls, the largest waterfall in Helena National Forest, is located within hiking distance of the cabin and is a sanctuary for many wildlife species, including the threatened Canada lynx, the sensitive goshawk and westslope cutthroat trout. The area offers unique opportunities for viewing wildlife in their natural habitat. Bighorn sheep, mule and white-tailed deer, black bear, moose and a variety of birds are commonly seen. The more elusive badger, wolverine and mountain lion find habitat here as well.
Nearby Attractions
Historic town sites and mining areas such as Elkhorn, Hassel, Ruddville and Diamond Hill mines are nearby for guests interested in the mining history of the Elkhorns.
What the agency tells you
There is no electricity, water or indoor plumbing at this facility
Entry to the cabin is by combination lock, your reservation confirmation email will have the combination code.
Please print and be prepared to present your confirmation letter to officials
Everything else this campground posts · 13
Cabin is accessed by a native surface dirt road, that has ruts and rocky sections, and is not plowed for snow; there are narrow spots with poor visibility; higher clearance 4x4 or AWD vehicles recommened (NOT for passenger cars),please drive slowly and use caution
No motorized vehicles allowed during winter closure periods
Do not leave food or trash outside the cabin
All garbage and food must be packed out
The cabin is a no-smoking facility
Please clean cabin upon departure
Make sure cabin is locked upon departure
Keep open fires within the campfire ring
Hay must be certified weed-free; out of state horses must have current Coggins test
Amenities such as dishes, utensils and firewood cannot be guaranteed
Guests should be aware that there is a risk of exposure to hantavirus when visiting remote cabins; click here to learn more
Learn more about the Helena 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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…site consists of the cabin, a woodshed, vault toilet, barn, horse corrals and a fire ring. The cabin can…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Guests must bring a sufficient amount of water for drinking, cooking and washing, as well as one or two small propane canisters to use with the propane stove and lantern.”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
Full this Saturdayread 16:32 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:32 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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:32 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 EAGLE GUARD STATION | 01 | cabin nonelectric | 480 ft | $25–$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
Strawberry CabinHelena National Forest · 13 mi
White Earth Campground16 miCoulter Campground16 mi
Hellgate Campground21 miCromwell Dixon CampgroundHelena National Forest · 21 miAll mileage is approximate from the highway.
Road is native surface dirt, with ruts and rocky sections, higher clearance vehicles are a must, 4x4/AWD recommended, road is NOT for passenger cars.
Directions to Eagle Guard Station from the intersection of highway 287 and Indian Creek Road (which is just north of the Missouri River Bridge, north of Townsend). Take the Indian Creek Road (traveling west) approximately 3.5 miles, you will pass a National Forest Access that says "Indian Creek", there will also be a sign on the left saying "Eagle Guard Station", take the left at this intersection. Stay on this road that travels through the canyon, for approximately 4.7 miles, you will come to a "Y" in the road, take the left which is the #4031 road. Stay on road 4031 for approximately 5 miles (you should pass a sign saying "Eagle Guard Station" with a straight arrow) until you come to a "T" intersection. There will be a sign that says "Radersburg/Crow Creek left" and "Eagle Guard Station right". Take a right for approziately .7 miles to the next intersection. Take the left and cabin is about .3 miles on the left.
From December 2 through May 15, the last 4 miles are not open to motorized vehicles. Access to the cabin is by foot, ski, or horseback.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for The Silos, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 28°F, day 57°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 12°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
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
Eagle Guard Station 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 →
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 moneyTroy DowningU.S. Representative · Montana’s 2nd 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 Eagle Guard Station, Helena National Forest, Montana
Dear Troy Downing, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Eagle Guard Station, Helena National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Eagle Guard Station 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Eagle Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Eagle Guard Station. 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 Eagle Guard Station (Helena 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 Eagle Guard Station, Helena National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Eagle Guard Station, Helena National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Eagle Guard Station 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Eagle Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Eagle Guard Station. 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 Eagle Guard Station (Helena 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 Eagle Guard Station, Helena National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Eagle Guard Station, Helena National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Eagle Guard Station 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Eagle Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Eagle Guard Station. 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 Eagle Guard Station (Helena National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com