Ear Mountain Cabin
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 30 mi
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 29 of the next 30 nights read 15:33 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Ear Mountain Cabin was a Lewis and Clark National Forest Administrative Cabin that was renovated in 2022. The cabin is located approximately 26 miles west of the town of Choteau, Montana. The drive to the cabin is easy. The first 17 miles are paved (Teton Canyon Road) and the last mile is a well maintained gravel road (South Fork Teton Road). The cabin sits under the northeast slope of Ear Mountain and is within easy access of the Ear Mountain Wildlife Management Area, Headquarters Pass and Our Lake Trailheads, and numerous other trails into the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area. Keep reading
Recreation
Recreation opportunities include hiking, horseback riding, fishing, snowmobiling, skiing, cross country skiing and snowshoeing. The nearby BLM Ear Mountain Outstanding Natural Area is closed from Dec. 15 to June 30 each year. No hunting is allowed within the cabin gates.
Facilities
Potable outside water faucet, propane full sized cooking range and oven, ample counter/work space, stocked with cooking and dining equipment (dishes ,flatware, pots and pans, coffee pot, etc.), propane heaters in each room, wood stove with viewing window, sleeps nine, two private bedrooms with built-in bunk beds, electric lighting and outlets, ample parking.
Natural Features
Set in the Rocky Mountain Front Range, the cabin sits near to the South Fork Teton River. The Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest boasts 1,600 miles of streams and several small natural and man-made lakes. Native wildlife includes grizzly and black bears, white-tailed deer, bald eagles, lynx, bighorn sheep and gray wolves.
Nearby Attractions
Food, fuel and other supplies are available in Choteau, 23 miles from the cabin.
What the agency tells you
Entry into cabin is by key. Check in/out is 2:00 p.m. Please check your email for information on regarding key pickup and other important information. Contact the ranger district at (406) 466-5341 during normal office hours with questions. Please bring garbage bags; this is a “pack it in, pack it out” facility No pets or stock allowed Maximum occupancy is nine. No camping units will be permitted at the cabin site. Bears frequent the area; all food must be kept in approved bear proof containers or inside the cabin or a hard sided vehicle. Clean cabin prior to departure; a fee is charged if extra clean-up is required 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
- 1 electric
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Not allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…cabin gates. Facilities Potable outside water faucet, propane full sized cooking range and oven, ample…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 15:33 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 15:33 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.
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 · 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 15:33 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites
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.
| Ear Mountain | Ear Mountain Cabin | cabin electric | $75 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau)Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area · 10 miFrom Highway 89 about 5 miles north of Choteau, go west on Teton Canyon Road. Just before mile marker 17, turn left on Bellview Cutacross Road, cross the bridge then turn right on South Fork Teton Road (just past a group of mailboxes) and continue approximately 4 miles. The cabin is located on your left behind the gate.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Rockport Colony, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 29°F, day 54°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February 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
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Ear Mountain Cabin 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 Ear Mountain Cabin, Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana
Dear Troy Downing, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Ear Mountain Cabin, Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Ear Mountain 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. Ear Mountain Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ear Mountain 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 Ear Mountain Cabin (Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, 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 Ear Mountain Cabin, Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Ear Mountain Cabin, Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Ear Mountain 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. Ear Mountain Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ear Mountain 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 Ear Mountain Cabin (Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, 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 Ear Mountain Cabin, Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Ear Mountain Cabin, Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Ear Mountain 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. Ear Mountain Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ear Mountain 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 Ear Mountain Cabin (Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana) via campanac.com