U.S. Forest Service · Clearwater National Forest · ID
Elk Summit Campground
5Heads up5 fires, nearest 19 mi
Wildfire
North Fork Lost Horse fire · 19 mi away · 118 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Grotto fire · 22 mi away · 3,856 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 9, 2026
Wildfire
Three Links fire · 26 mi away · 927 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 7, 2026
Wildfire
Cascade fire · 29 mi away · 7,475 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 9, 2026
Wildfire
Wolf Creek fire · 29 mi away · 2,643 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 9, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 15, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading; a database flag says not open
- Season
- July 1Opens July 1. No closing date published.
5,830 ftElevation
482 ftWater · Horse Creek
22.8 miNW of Hamilton, MT
12%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 223rd darkest of 523 in ID
Opens July 1. No closing date published.Today
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
This sweet destination of a campground rests a short distance from the 1.34 million acre Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Located just 24 miles south of Highway 12, you'll have available to you 15 campsites, stock facilities, stunning scenery, and access to some of the nation's wildest country including many remote alpine lakes and mountain peaks. Hoodoo Lake is just a short stroll from the campground.
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Auto Touring
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horse Camping
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Picnicking
- Wildlife viewing
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · Aug 23, 2026
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
Every line of the receipt · 3
What you actually pay
The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Coordinate46.32849, -114.64452
The mapSee it on the map
The driveDirections ↗
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗
Where it is
Also near hereWhite Sands CampgroundClearwater National Forest · 13 mi
Powell CampgroundClearwater National Forest · 13 miWhitehouse CampgroundClearwater National Forest · 14 mi
Schumaker CampgroundBitterroot National Forest · 14 mi
Lost Horse Guard StationBitterroot National Forest · 16 mi
Blodgett CampgroundBitterroot National Forest · 20 mi
Powell CampgroundClearwater National Forest · 13 miWhitehouse CampgroundClearwater National Forest · 14 miSchumaker CampgroundBitterroot National Forest · 14 miLost Horse Guard StationBitterroot National Forest · 16 miBlodgett CampgroundBitterroot National Forest · 20 miSource: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Overnight37°Partly Cloudy
Saturday53°Mostly Sunny
Saturday Night33°Mostly Cloudy1% rain
Sunday51°Mostly Sunny
NWS forecast for Pinesdale, MT
Source: National Weather Service, MSO forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
developing
Roadless
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 3, 2026
Who answers for this land
Elk Summit Campground is in Idaho’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Russ Fulcher (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: Today falls inside the season the agency publishes, and it has posted nothing else. That reading is ours. The U.S. Forest Service’s own database, though, flags it not open with no reason or date; the flag is named under How we know all this.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 16, 2026
Season: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Pinesdale, MT, 19.4 mi W. Straight line.