U.S. Forest Service · Gallatin National Forest · MT
Fairy Lake Campground
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
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
7,720 ftElevation
591 ftWater · Fairy Lake
11.3 miNE of Belgrade, MT
54%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 475th darkest of 501 in MT
The place
the agency’s own description
In the agency’s own words
A campground in the Bridger Mountains on the Bozeman District.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Around the campground
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 27 km away
- Past peak
Source: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (27 km) · Oct 8, 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.
BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe record
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Every line of the receipt · 4
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.
None
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: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Also near here
Battle Ridge CabinGallatin National Forest · 4.0 miBattle Ridge CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 4.3 miLower Madison Dispersed Camping Sites22 mi
Trail Creek CabinGallatin National Forest · 24 mi
Lower Hyalite GroupGallatin National Forest · 25 mi
Mystic Lake CabinMystic Lake Reservoir Water Reserve Withdrawal · 25 mi
Battle Ridge CabinGallatin National Forest · 4.0 miBattle Ridge CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 4.3 miLower Madison Dispersed Camping Sites22 miTrail Creek CabinGallatin National Forest · 24 miLower Hyalite GroupGallatin National Forest · 25 miMystic Lake CabinMystic Lake Reservoir Water Reserve Withdrawal · 25 miSource: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Tonight34°Partly Cloudy
Saturday49°Mostly Sunny
Saturday Night34°Partly Cloudy
Sunday46°Sunny
NWS forecast for Sedan, MT
Source: National Weather Service, TFX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
Roadless
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 16, 2026
Who answers for this land
Fairy Lake Campground 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 →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
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
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (27 km) · Oct 8, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported past peak · Oct 8, 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: inside Sedan, MT (a census designated place). Straight line.