Hunter Campground
1Heads up1 fire 31 mi away
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $22From, per site
- Sites
- 9All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Hunter Trailhead is a campground constructed with the equestrian camper in mind, but available for all users. The campground is located in Johnson Country, Wyoming, just two miles off the Cloud Peak Scenic Byway on Highway 16. The winding drive to the campground travels two miles west of U.S. Highway 16 on Forest Road 19 and is an easily accessible gravel road offering views of wildlife, mountain streams, and abundant wildflowers. Keep reading
Recreation
Rising between the Powder River and Big Horn Basins, this scenic country offers year round recreation connecting visitors to a land rich in history and solitude. For centuries, the mountain landscape has provided renewal for Native Americans, homesteaders and modern day explorers creating a human connection with this spectacular place. The Hunter Trailhead provides numerous hiking and horse friendly trails to access front-country, the Cloud Peak Wilderness as well as the Rock Creek Recommended Wilderness Area. The surrounding Bighorn National Forest offers a wide variety of activities, including hiking, fishing, scenic driving, wildlife and a number of historic sites.
Facilities
The non-fee portion of the site provides access to the trailhead and includes parking for 15 single vehicles and 18 vehicles with trailers, and a separate area for Outfitter/Guide parking. Of the 11 sites, nine are reservable, one is used by the host during July/August and the remaining two are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Each campsite has a 20 by 20 foot hardened use pad with a picnic table, utility table, fire ring and an individual livestock corral. The spur for each campsite is 65 feet long by 20 feet wide. Potable water is available at the facility through a pressurized solar water system. The entire facility is ADA (Americans with Disabilities) accessible including the ramp for horse mounting.
Natural Features
No region in Wyoming is provided with a more diverse landscape - from lush grasslands to alpine meadows, from crystal-clear lakes to glacially-carved valleys, from rolling hills to sheer mountain walls. The campground is situated high in the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming, at an elevation of 7,800 feet, so be prepared for all types of weather. A dense forest of lodgepole pine is the dominant vegetative cover.
Nearby Attractions
Tie Hack Reservoir is a 15-minute drive southeast of the campground. The scenic lake offers a great location for canoeing and fishing. Anglers there cast for rainbow, cutthroat, brown and brook trout.
What the agency tells you
Hay must be certified weed-free
Be familiar with local Forest Service regulations
Practice Leave No Trace principles
Everything else this campground posts · 2
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 9 · 9 equestrian
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…is 65 feet long by 20 feet wide. Potable water is available at the facility through a pressurized…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek, Meadow
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Night sky · 172nd 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 · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $22 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
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
9 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 8 mapped sitesAll 9 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. 9 of the 9 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| HUNT | 001 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | $22 | ||
| HUNT | 002 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | 139 ft | 1,199 ft | $22 |
| HUNT | 003 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | 68 ft | 1,115 ftFrench Creek | $22 |
| HUNT | 004 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | 68 ft | 1,069 ftFrench Creek | $22 |
| HUNT | 005 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | 69 ft | 1,057 ftFrench Creek | $22 |
| HUNT | 006 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | 73 ft | 1,097 ftFrench Creek | $22 |
| HUNT | 007 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | 66 ft | 1,120 ftFrench Creek | $22 |
| HUNT | 008 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | 57 ft | 1,147 ftFrench Creek | $22 |
| HUNT | 009 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | 57 ft | 1,163 ftFrench Creek | $22 |
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 · 2.6 mi
Hettinger Group AreaBighorn National Forest · 2.8 mi
Circle Park CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 3.6 mi
Tie HackBighorn National Forest · 3.8 mi
South Fork (Wyoming)Bighorn National Forest · 4.0 mi
Pole Creek CabinBighorn National Forest · 9.8 miFrom Buffalo, travel west on Highway 16 for 13 miles. Turn off Highway 16 west onto Forest Road 19, where you will travel approximately 2 miles to the campground.
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
Hunter Campground 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 →