Hunter Peak
1Heads up1 fire 49 mi away
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $20From, per site
- Sites
- 8All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Hunter Peak Campground is located on the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway/State Highway 296, approximately four miles south of the junction with scenic Beartooth Highway/U.S. Highway 12. The campground is about 60 miles northeast of Cody, in northwestern Wyoming. Keep reading
Recreation
The Clarks Fork offers outstanding fishing opportunities for rainbow and cutthroat trout. Many hiking trails are located in the area, including the Clarks Fork Trailhead, which is across the highway from the campground.
Facilities
This small campground contains single-family campsites, each equipped with a table and campfire ring. Vault toilets, hand-pumped water, and trash collection are provided. A host is on-site. Firewood may be gathered in the area. Fuel and sundries are available in the nearby community of Crandall. Sites 5, 6, 7, and 8 are available for reservation. Please click on the "Check Availability" button for more information.
Natural Features
The campground sits on the banks of the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River, at an elevation of 6,500 feet. A mixed conifer forest covers the campground. A variety of wildlife, including grizzly bear, deer and elk makes its home in the area.
Nearby Attractions
The Beartooth Highway was deemed "the most beautiful drive in America," by the late Charles Kuralt. It snakes across the rugged Beartooth Mountains from Red Lodge to Cooke City, Mont., and is the highest elevation highway in the Northern Rockies. Along the way, visitors are treated to sweeping views and plentiful outdoor recreation opportunities. Yellowstone National Park's northeast entrance is approximately 24 miles from the campground via the Beartooth Highway. The park offers unparalleled wildlife viewing opportunities, as well as breathtaking scenery and unique geological features.
What the agency tells you
Grizzly bears frequent the area; all food, beverages, coolers, trash and other attractants must be properly stored at all times
An additional fee is collected at the campground entrance for extra vehicles
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 .
Everything else this campground posts · 1
Click here for more information on the Shoshone National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 8
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 56 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…equipped with a table and campfire ring. Vault toilets, hand-pumped water, and trash collection are…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 27th 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, $20 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
8 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 8 mapped sitesAll 8 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. 8 of the 8 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| HUNTER PEAK | 002 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 136 ft | 85 ft | $20 |
| HUNTER PEAK | 003 | standard nonelectric | 23 ft | 83 ft | 128 ft | $20 |
| HUNTER PEAK | 004 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 83 ft | 46 ft | $20 |
| HUNTER PEAK | 005 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 97 ft | 42 ft | $20 |
| HUNTER PEAK | 006 | standard nonelectric | 56 ft | 95 ft | 46 ft | $20 |
| HUNTER PEAK | 007 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 95 ft | 138 ft | $20 |
| HUNTER PEAK | 008 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 98 ft | 78 ft | $20 |
| HUNTER PEAK | 009 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 140 ft | 178 ft | $20 |
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
Sunlight Rangers CabinShoshone National Forest · 12 miFrom Cody, Wyo., travel north on State Highway 120 to Highway 296. Enjoy your drive along the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway as the campground is approximately 60 miles from Cody, and located on the left side of the highway. From the northeast entrance of Yellowstone Park or Red Lodge, MT, travel on U.S. Highway 212, which is part of the All-American Road - Beartooth Scenic Byway to the junction with State Highway 296. Take Highway 296 approximately 5 miles to the campground, which is on the right side of the highway.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cooke City, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 24°F, day 47°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 6°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 Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
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 Peak 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 →