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U.S. Forest Service · Kootenai National Forest · MT

Howard Lake Campground

1Heads up1 fire 21 mi away
Wildfire
Deer Creek fire · 21 mi away · 1,099 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 13, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 13, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 4,110 ft · 37% tree cover · Howard Creek within reach · Bortle 2 sky
4,110 ftElevation
313 ftWater · Howard Creek
18.1 miS of Libby, MT
37%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 235th darkest of 501 in MT

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Howard Lake campground is located south of Libby on road 4779. The campground has 10 sites (3 pull thru's) including one host site with tables and fire rings. Camground roads and parking spurs are gravel. Amentities include vault toilets and swimming beach. There are 2 day use sites with fire rings and picnic tables near the beach area. The camphost may close the gate to the campground each evening at 10:00 pm and open it again at 7:00 am. The gate closes for the season on December 1st and is opened again when access permits. Howard Lake and Howard Creek were prospected and named after the Howard brothers, Alfred and Benjamin. These two were among some of the the earliest miners to file and work claims on Upper Libby Creek from 1885 to 1915 when at the age of 80 Benjamin died.

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

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…spurs are gravel. Amentities include vault toilets and swimming beach. There are 2 day use sites with…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake, Creek, Beach
Boating
Fishing
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · Aug 23, 2026
Official page: Howard Lake Campground →

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 itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest 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
Coordinate48.10094, -115.53067
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

Today60°Sunny
Tonight39°Partly Cloudy
Saturday56°Mostly Sunny3% rain
Saturday Night33°Partly Cloudy

NWS forecast for Pioneer Junction, MT

Source: National Weather Service, MSO forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 27°F, day 52°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 15°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°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: LIBBY 32 SSE, MT (USC00245020), 18 miles away and 670 ft lower
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

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

critical
Roadless
Cabinet Face East50,326 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Rock Creek806 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Barren Creek14,534 acres · 9 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 4, 2026

Who answers for this land

Ryan Zinke, official portrait

Howard Lake 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 →

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: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
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: 0.039 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 Forest 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: Pioneer Junction, MT, 12.6 mi S (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