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National Park Service · MT

Grapevine Campground

1Heads uppark alert
Park Closure
No Water Available at Ok-A-Beh Marina - Flushing Restrooms Closed Due to a water shortage, flushable toilets are currently unavailable at the Ok-A-Beh Marina. Vault toilets are available at the upper parking lot and a floating restroom is available on the courtesy dock.
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 17, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: all 14 sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
Sites
14All of them walk-up
Season
Year-roundOpen year-round
Photos · NPS, Jen Prentiss
3,200 ftElevation
43 ftWater · Grapevine Creek
28.9 miSW of Crow Agency, MT
n/aTree cover · water-masked cell
Bortle 2Night sky · 382nd darkest of 501 in MT
Open year-roundToday

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

- Near Fort Smith, Montana - Open All Year! - 14 RV and tent sites are located on the north shore of Afterbay lake - RV sites are back in (not pull through) - All sites are handicapped accessible, have fire rings, and picnic tables - Vault toilets are accessible - There are no RV hookups - Trash cans available seasonally (May-Oct) - RV dump station and drinking water available across Afterbay lake near the Headquarters building and Afterbay Campground

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets - year round
Drinking water
Yes
Dump station
Yes
Source: National Park Service and agency records

Around the campground

On the water
Lake
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026
Official page: Grapevine Campground Official Website →

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 agency’s record
Runs itNational Park Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
The National Park 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

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate45.31785, -107.94016
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Tonight48°Mostly Clear
Saturday77°Sunny
Saturday Night43°Partly Cloudy
Sunday66°Sunny

NWS forecast for Fort Smith, MT

Source: National Weather Service, BYZ forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 38°F, day 61°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 20°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

100°32°10°

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.

Measured at: YELLOWTAIL DAM, MT (USC00249240), 0.4 miles away and 105 ft higher
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Troy Downing, official portrait

Grapevine Campground is in Montana’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Troy Downing (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now.
Season: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.08 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 501 rated federal campgrounds in Montana · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Park 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 Fort Smith, MT (a census designated place). Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026