Hettinger Group Area
1Heads up1 fire 34 mi away
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Hettinger Group Campground is located 14 miles west of Buffalo, Wyoming on the east side of scenic Cloud Peak Skyway, near the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area. The surrounding Bighorn National Forest offers a wide variety of activities, including hiking, fishing, scenic driving and a number of historic sites. The administering organization is Rustic Freedom / Gallatin Canyon Campgrounds; e-mail: support@rusticfreedom.com Recreation Tie Hack Reservoir is a short drive away, offering a great location for canoeing and fishing. Anglers cast for rainbow, cutthroat, brown and brook trout. Keep reading
A short trail leads from the campground to the lake. The Circle Park Trailhead is 3 miles from the campground. This beautiful trail accesses numerous alpine lakes and two 12,000' peaks within the Cloud Peak Wilderness. Many additional hiking trails are available in the area. Scenic off-road driving is available on nearby Elgin Park, Pole Creek and Crazy Woman Canyon Roads. Hiking and mountain biking are allowed on these roads as well.
Facilities
The campground offers one group site that can accommodate up to 150 people, and can be used for overnight camping or day-use picnicking. The site is equipped with picnic tables, grills and a campfire circle. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are also provided. The nearest dump station is 18 miles away on Powder River Pass.
Natural Features
The campground is situated in a small meadow within a dense forest of lodgepole pine. Tie Hack Reservoir and several creeks are nearby. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (307) 431-7446.
Nearby Attractions
South Fork Lodge is nearby, offering dining options, lodging, guided horseback riding, a fishing pond and a small store with fishing and camping supplies.
Charges & Cancellations
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This cancellation processing fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
What the agency tells you
The administering organization reserves the right to substitute sites without prior notice
Group area is also available for day use for the same rate as overnight use
Firewood may be purchased from the campground host.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Click here for more information on the Bighorn National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing organisms by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…tables, grills and a campfire circle. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are also…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…and a campfire circle. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are also provided. The nearest…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- Store
- Nearby
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Non-Motorized Boating
- Off Road Vehicle Trails
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 171st darkest of 248 in WY
- Bortle 2
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 · 13
What you actually pay
“Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee.” · this campground’s own terms
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 Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
| HETTINGER GROUP | 01 | group standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 627 ft |
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
Middle ForkBighorn National Forest · 0.3 mi
Tie HackBighorn National Forest · 1.1 mi
South Fork (Wyoming)Bighorn National Forest · 1.2 mi
Circle Park CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 2.2 mi
Hunter CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 2.8 mi
Pole Creek CabinBighorn National Forest · 7.1 miFrom Buffalo, Wyoming, take U.S. Highway 16 west for 14.5 miles.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Buffalo, WY
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
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
Hettinger Group Area is in Wyoming’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Harriet Hageman (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →