Hells Canyon Guard Station
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 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:32 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Hells Canyon Guard Station is a quaint log cabin located in the Highland Mountains of Montana's Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. It is most often used as a base camp by hunters and hikers. The area is replete with wildlife and provides access to scenic mountain views, as well as plentiful opportunities for recreation. It was originally built in 1906 and used as a line cabin for ranchers before being donated to the Forest Service in 1910. The Forest Service has used the cabin as a guard station and now offers it for public enjoyment. The cabin can be accessed by vehicle; however, during winter months, alternative resources may be required to reach the cabin. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
Hunters frequently use the cabin as a base camp. Fishing is also available in nearby Hells Canyon Creek. Hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding are popular activities enjoyed by visitors to the Hells Canyon area. Off-road vehicles are allowed on designated trails. Off-road vehicles and motorcycles are also allowed in the area, but must be properly permitted and licensed to be on trails and roads. During winter months, the area is popular for cross country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling. Winter sports enthusiasts should carry and know how to use proper backcountry equipment, including a beacon, shovel and probe.
Facilities
The large, single-room structure has bunk beds to sleep up to 4 people. It has potable drinking water in the summer months, a Coleman propane cooktop (propane not provided), a wood stove for heat and cooking, and a table and chairs. Basic cooking and eating utensils, pots, and pans, as well as some cleaning equipment, should be available inside. An outhouse with a vault toilet is nearby. Electricity is not available at this cabin. There is a propane lantern you can use but propane is not provided. Guests will need to bring their own bedding, including blankets and pillows, towels, soap, matches, garbage bags, food, and propane fuel (for lanterns and coleman) in 16-ounce canisters. Guests are required to pack out all trash and clean the cabin prior to leaving. Cell phone service is rare or nonexistent in the area. Cabin must be cleaned prior to leaving. Please remember that Hells Canyon Guard Station is considered a recreational area and shooting is not permitted around the cabin. Check-out time is 11 am, check-in time is 2 pm.
Natural Features
The cabin is in an idyllic setting, with pristine nature all around. It is situated along Hells Canyon Creek in a lush meadow of sagebrush and tall grasses. The Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest is famous for its wide array of big game animals. Elk and deer are the most sought after by hunters on the forest and in the Hells Canyon area. Upland game birds are also in the area.
What the agency tells you
This facility is located in a remote area; before making a reservation, become aware of bear, water and weather safety, including avalanche danger.
Firewood is available, but not always guaranteed.
The cabin remains locked; contact the Butte Ranger District during office hours to obtain a key code. The Ranger District is open Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Water from the hand pump is not tested in the winter months, please boil water for 5 minutes before consuming or bring potable water with you.
All garbage and food must be packed out.
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.
Learn more about the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…be available inside. An outhouse with a vault toilet is nearby. Electricity is not available at this…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…to sleep up to 4 people. It has potable drinking water in the summer months, a Coleman propane cooktop…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Winter sports
Full this Saturdayread 16:32 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Tue, Oct 20. read 16:32 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 · 14
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 16:32 UTC · rules read Oct 1, 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.
| AREA HELLS CANYON GUARD STATION | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 93 ft | $55 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Fleecer StationDeerlodge National Forest · 19 mi
Delmoe Lake Campground and Picnic AreaDeerlodge National Forest · 21 miFrom Whitehall, travel south on Highway 55 for about 20 miles. Turn right off the highway just before crossing the Jefferson River, onto Forest Service Road 125, and continue west about 14 miles on a dirt road. Winter access varies with snow conditions. Guests may need to hike, ski or snowmobile to the cabin during winter months. Maps may be purchased by calling the Butte/Jefferson Ranger District.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Butte-Silver Bow (balance), MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 23°F, day 56°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 7°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
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Hells Canyon Guard 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 Hells Canyon Guard Station, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Hells Canyon Guard Station, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Hells Canyon Guard 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Hells Canyon Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Hells Canyon Guard 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 Hells Canyon Guard Station (Deerlodge 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 Hells Canyon Guard Station, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Hells Canyon Guard Station, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Hells Canyon Guard 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Hells Canyon Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Hells Canyon Guard 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 Hells Canyon Guard Station (Deerlodge 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 Hells Canyon Guard Station, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Hells Canyon Guard Station, Deerlodge National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Hells Canyon Guard 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Hells Canyon Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Hells Canyon Guard 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 Hells Canyon Guard Station (Deerlodge National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com