Fairview Ranger Station
1Heads up1 fire 14 mi away
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 27 of the next 30 nights read 16:42 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
This remote cabin was built in 1908 and served as an administration building for the Wolf Creek District of the Blackfeet National Forest. The Blackfeet NF was dissolved in 1935 becoming part of the Kootenai & Flathead NF. Fairview was used as a remote work station until 1980. In 2011 major work was done to restore the cabin and put it on the rental system. The cabin is open year-round and is accessible by car. Keep reading
Recreation
Opportunities abound from this location. Hiking, fishing, floating, hunting, scenic and historical driving tours are just some of the activities to be enjoyed.
Facilities
This 900 square foot cabin can sleep up to 6 people and comes furnished with one double bed and two twin beds with mattresses upstairs and one double futon and twin futon with mattresses downstairs. Other amenities include a propane stove, refrigerator, heater and lights, table and chairs, table settings for eight, kitchen tools, pots and pans and cleaning gear. A vault toilet is located nearby. Electricity and potable water are not available. Guests must bring enough water for drinking, cooking and washing. Items such as bedding, lanterns or flashlights, matches, first aid supplies, garbage bags, dish soap, dish towels and dish cloths are not available. Guests are expected to pack out all trash and clean the cabin before leaving.
Natural Features
The Fairview Ranger Station is situated near Wolf Creek at an elevation of 2,995 feet within the Salish Mountain Range of the Rocky Mountains in the Kootenai National Forest. Wolf Creek and its many tributaries provide habitat for a variety of trout and big game animals. Wolf Creek has been an important route through history as a trail for the Kootenai Indians, early prospectors and railroads.
What the agency tells you
The cabin is secured with a combination lock; please call the Ranger District at (406)293-7773 prior to arrival to confirm the combination.
Check-in is 2:00 pm; Check-out is 11:00 am.
There is no potable water; guests must provide their own water for drinking, cooking and washing.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Pets are allowed, but please NO PETS ON THE FURNITURE.
There is a 5 consecutive day stay limit. A break of 7 days is requested before making another reservation.
Horses are not allowed within the cabin area's fenced yard. Hay brought to this facility must be certified weed-free.
Please pack out all trash and food and clean cabin thoroughly before departing.
Be aware, this facility is not cleaned between user visits. It is up to individual renters to bring their own cleaning supplies and clean before and after site use.
No shooting is allowed in the cabin area.
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
- Vault Toilets
- ACCESSIBLE VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Electricity and potable water are not available.”
- Stay limit
- 15 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:42 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday, and on the one midweek night after it that the agency has released as well. read 16:42 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 16:42 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.
| FAIRVIEW RANGER STATION | Fairview Ranger Station | cabin nonelectric | 124 ft | $75 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
McGillivray Campground (MT)Kootenai National Forest · 15 mi
Star Meadows Guard StationFlathead National Forest · 15 mi
Meadow Peak Lookout (MT)Kootenai National Forest · 19 mi
Tally Lake CampgroundFlathead National Forest · 21 miAshley Lake North CampgroundFlathead National Forest · 22 miFrom Libby Montana follow Hwy 37 N for 14 miles to Fisher River Road 763. Turn right and follow for 10 miles; continue straight merging onto Wolf Cr/Fortine Cr road 36 and follow for another 17 miles. The cabin will be on the left.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Trego, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 57°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 22°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
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Fairview Ranger Station 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 Fairview Ranger Station, Kootenai National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Fairview Ranger Station, Kootenai National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Fairview Ranger 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. Fairview Ranger Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Fairview Ranger 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 Fairview Ranger Station (Kootenai 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 Fairview Ranger Station, Kootenai National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Fairview Ranger Station, Kootenai National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Fairview Ranger 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. Fairview Ranger Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Fairview Ranger 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 Fairview Ranger Station (Kootenai 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 Fairview Ranger Station, Kootenai National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Fairview Ranger Station, Kootenai National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Fairview Ranger 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. Fairview Ranger Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Fairview Ranger 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 Fairview Ranger Station (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com