Fales Flat Campground
1Heads up1 fire 29 mi away
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading
- Sites
- 3All of them booked ahead
- Season
- May 1Opens May 1. No closing date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Fales Flat Campground is a group facility on Nez Perce Fork of the Bitterroot River. It is also well equipped for equestrian campers. The campground provides access to a variety of hiking and horseback riding trails in the area, as well as a variety of historic sites that denote the presence of the Nez Perce many years ago. Keep reading
Recreation
Fly fishing and wading in the Nez Perce Fork, which runs alongside the campground, are also popular activities. A variety of trails and unimproved roads are great for hiking and horseback riding. Three trails originate near the campground. Watchtower Trail is just down the Nez Perce a mile, Sheephead Creek Trail which is across the road from Fales Flat campground accesses the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and can be hiked as a loop, or up to or down from the top of Nez Perce Pass. A third trail, Barecone Trail starts just below Fales Flat Campground and is a steep, 2-mile trail which leads to Bare Cone Lookout.
Facilities
The campground offers one large group site for tent and RV camping. It can accommodate 15 to 100 people. Hookups are not available. Parking surfaces are gravel. The site is equipped with multiple tables and a large campfire circle. Vault toilets are provided. Drinking water and trash collection bins are not available. A few individual and equestrian sites are available at the campground on a first-come, first-served basis. Those sites have access to a horse staging area and hitching racks.
Natural Features
The campground is located in a large meadow at the base of Nez Perce Pass along the Nez Perce Fork of the Bitterroot River. The area is believed to have been used by the Nez Perce Nimi'ipuu tribe during its travels to the buffalo country in eastern Montana.
Nearby Attractions
The campground is at the base of Nez Perce Pass which is a corridor into the heart of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Areas. The Montana/Idaho stateline sits atop Nez Perce Pass where there is interpretive information and trailhead access north and south.
What the agency tells you
Water is not available at the campground
Call (406) 821-3269 for information on potential road closures or fire restrictions
Click here for more information on the Bitterroot National Forest
Everything else this campground posts · 5
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.
No garbage service available, pack it in and pack it out.
No cell phone coverage.
Bears frequent the area; all food must be kept unavailable to bears in approved containers or inside a hard sided vehicle from March 1 through December 31.
For more information on the Food Storage Order in Bear Country, visit https://nfs.fs2c.usda.gov/sites/nfs/files/r01/bitterroot/publication/alerts/BRF_FSO_Handout_final.pdf
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 3 · 3 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 3 campsite records
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Drinking water and trash collection bins are not available.”
- Stay limit
- 7 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic Sites
- Hunting
- Scenic drives
- Night sky · 11th darkest of 501 in MT
- Bortle 1
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
3 sites · the site map
All 3 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 3 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 3 of the 3 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
RomboBitterroot National Forest · 8.0 mi
Slate Creek CampgroundBitterroot National Forest · 8.4 mi
Sam Billings Memorial CampgroundBitterroot National Forest · 11 mi
Alta CampgroundBitterroot National Forest · 11 mi
Deep Creek CampgroundBitterroot National Forest · 13 miFrom Darby, travel south on Highway 93 for about four miles. Turn onto Highway 473 and continue southwest for 14 miles. Turn west onto Forest Road 468 and continue about 12 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Conner, MT
Typical weather
Typical May night 33°F, day 64°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 33°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Fales Flat 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 →