Ford Cabin
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 28 of the next 30 nights read 15:17 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
Ford Cabin offers a cozy, rustic getaway along the appropriately named Wild and Scenic North Fork of the Flathead River. It is about 45 miles north of Columbia Falls, in northwestern Montana. Visitors enjoy a variety of recreational activities, including fishing, viewing wildlife and exploring the area's many trails. The cabin is available from May 22 to March 31. It can be access by vehicle, however four-wheel drive and chains are recommended during the winter. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities. The majority of the road from Columbia Falls to Ford Cabin is gravel, so be prepared for dust during your drive and at the cabin. Keep reading
Recreation
Rainbow and cutthroat trout fishing is pleasant. In fact, the Flathead River is renowned for its excellent fly fishing. Visitors can hike and mountain bike on various trails and roads, or float in the river from the Canadian border to Polebridge on Class I to II rapids.
Facilities
The rustic log cabin has a small, covered front porch and a vault toilet nearby. It is equipped with a propane stove, lights, a heater and limited cooking and eating utensils. Furnishings include two bunk beds and one double bed, to accommodate up to six people. Water from a hand-pump system, is only available from April to November. In winter, visitors must bring their own water. Other items to bring include food, bedding, flashlights, a first aid kit and other basic camping gear. Click here for more cabin details .
Natural Features
The cabin is perched on a grassy field beside a stand of pine trees and near the North Fork of the Flathead River and Tepee Creek. The surrounding Glacier View Ranger District is bordered on the east by the Middle Fork of the Flathead River and Glacier National Park. To the north is Canada and west is the Kootenai National Forest. A variety of wildlife live in the area, including elk, moose and bears.
Nearby Attractions
Polebridge Mercantile offers limited supplies, and is about a half-hour's drive from the cabin.
What the agency tells you
There is a maximum stay of three consecutive nights with a total of seven days per calendar year.
Electricity and sewer are not available at the cabin
Drinking water (hand pump) is available from April 1st to November 30th.
Everything else this campground posts · 12
Tents, RVs, and campers are not allowed on premises.
Bears frequent the area; use appropriate containers for food and garbage.
Pets and livestock are not allowed at the cabin.
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack-it-in, pack-it-out' facility.
Please help conserve propane by minimizing use of lights, and keeping the thermostat set at 55 degrees when away from the cabin.
Contact the ranger district office at (406) 387-3800, during normal office hours (Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) for updates on weather and road conditions; refunds will not be given for inclement weather or road conditions.
The cabin remains locked; a combination lock code will be contained in the reservation confirmation letter.
Guests must clean cabin prior to departure; a fee will be charged if extra clean-up is needed.
Commercial use of the cabin is prohibited.
Click here for more information on the Flathead National Forest.
Check-out time is 1200 pm. Check-in time is 2 pm.
This is a remote cabin that may be unoccupied for extended periods of time. Mice may be present in cabin - there are supplies to trap mice and remove safely in cabin. Please do your part to help mitigate rodents by picking up food crumbs, cleaning thoroughly, and trapping mice if they are present.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 20 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…has a small, covered front porch and a vault toilet nearby. It is equipped with a propane stove,…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…to November. In winter, visitors must bring their own water. Other items to bring include food, bedding,…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Night sky · 101st darkest of 501 in MT
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 15:17 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 15:17 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 · 15
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 15:17 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
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 1 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. 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.
| AREA FORD CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 20 ft | 152 ftTepee Creek | 962 ft | $50 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Wurtz CabinFlathead National Forest · 1.0 mi
Schnaus CabinFlathead National Forest · 2.8 mi
Kintla Lake CampgroundGlacier National Park · 4.5 mi
Hornet LookoutFlathead National Forest · 6.2 mi
Ben Rover CabinFlathead National Forest · 8.4 mi
Bowman Lake CampgroundGlacier National Park · 8.5 miFrom Columbia Falls, travel north on Nucleus Avenue until the road ends at the intersection of Railroad Street. Turn right (east) on Railroad Street. Continue on Railroad Street; it becomes the North Fork Road. Continue north on the North Fork Road for 45 miles. Turn right on Road 308 just north of the Tepee Creek crossing. Follow Road 308 back across Tepee Creek to Ford Cabin.
North Fork Road is gravel and rough in spots. It is only intermittently plowed during the winter months, requiring four-wheel drive or chains for travel.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Polebridge, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 25°F, day 52°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
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Ford Cabin 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 Ford Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Ford Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Ford 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. Ford Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ford 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 Ford Cabin (Flathead 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 Ford Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Ford Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Ford 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. Ford Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ford 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 Ford Cabin (Flathead 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 Ford Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Ford Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Ford 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. Ford Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ford 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 Ford Cabin (Flathead National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com