Hunters Spring Cabin
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 28 of the next 30 nights read 16:38 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Hunters Spring provides a serene escape in the mountains of central Montana. The cabin is open year-round and is secured with a combination lock. It is a prime destination for hunting, hiking, off-highway vehicle riding, snowmobiling and cross country skiing enthusiasts. The cabin is a great launching point for whatever type of recreation you wish to do. Hunters Spring Cabin is a must on your next destination plans! Summer access is via a gravel Forest Service 274 up to the cabin. The combination for the cabin will also open the gate to the driveway of the cabin. Access in the winter months is by snowmobile, skis or snowshoes only. The road is not plowed and not open to wheeled vehicles between December 1 - (generally) April 15. Please contact Belt Office at 406-236-55111 or the Harlowton Office at 406-632-4391 for more information on road conditions. Keep reading
Recreation
Open year-round, the surrounding area offers outdoor recreation opportunities including hunting, hiking, off-highway vehicle riding, cross country skiing, snowmobiling and snowshoeing.
Facilities
The rustic two-story cabin sleeps up to eight guests in three roomy bedrooms. The kitchen is outfitted with a propane cook stove, refrigerator and a wood stove for heat. The dining room is furnished with a table and chairs. The firewood suppied is limited for the wood stove, DO NOT USE FIREWOOD FOR OUTSIDE FIRES. Cooking pots, pans, dishes and utensils are on hand in the kitchen. Dogs are not permitted inside the cabin. No water, No electricity or sewer is provided. Guests should bring plenty of water, for drinking, cooking, and cleaning purposes, cleaning supplies, bedding, food, warm clothing, toilet paper, flashlights, matches, garbage bags and other basic camping items. Guest must clean the cabin/toilet completely and pack out all food, trash upon departure. Wood box should be filled before departure. (Click here for more cabin details.)
Natural Features
Hunters Spring is located in the Little Belt Mountains near Whitetail Creek at an altitude of about 6,400 feet. Lodgepole pine and Douglas fir can be found in the area, and deer and elk are common.
Nearby Attractions
The nearest towns are Harlowton and White Sulphur Springs. Both are about an hour's drive from the cabin.
What the agency tells you
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack in-pack out' facility
No water, electricity or sewer
Cell phone reception is unreliable
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Firewood is provided for wood stove only; please restock firewood box prior to departure
Collect downed, dead wood for campfire firewood
Pets are not allowed in the cabin at any time, but can be kept outside in a kennel or on a six-foot or less leash. Users are responsible for removing all pet food and droppings from rental site prior to departure.
No camping units permitted at cabin site
Visitors must clean cabin prior to departure; a fee will be charged if extra clean-up is needed. Check out time 11:00 AM.
Walk-in reservations no longer accepted
Bears frequent the area; keep all food out of sight in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from area after eating
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…Dogs are not permitted inside the cabin. No water, No electricity or sewer is provided. Guests should…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Archery
- Backpacking
- Biking
- Birding
- Cross Country Skiing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- OHV riding
- Picnicking
- Sledding
- Snowmobile
- Snowmobile Trails
Full this Saturdayread 16:38 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Tue, Oct 20. read 16:38 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 · 12
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 16:38 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 1 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
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 HUNTERS SPRING CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 4,735 ft | 2,272 ft | $65 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Kings Hill CabinLewis & Clark National Forest · 15 miJumping Creek CampgroundLewis & Clark National Forest · 15 miRichardson CampgroundLewis & Clark National Forest · 15 miFrom the south: From Hwy 12 take Forest Road 274 north for approximately 11 miles to Forest Road 6429 tturn right on 6479 just past Whitetail Campground. Go approximately .5 mies on road 6429 to the Hunter Springs Cabin turn off on the right. and the sign pointing to the Hunters Spring Cabin.
From the North: From Utica, MT take the county road west out of Utica which is county road 1 and go about 13 miles to a junction. At the junction, go straight or left toward South Fork Judith Forest Road 487 and follow the road all the way to the Spring Creek junction. Turn Left onto Spring Creek Road #274 and follow it to the Bear Park Road #6429. Turn left and go just past the spring to the left and the gate will be on the right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Martinsdale Colony, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 27°F, day 52°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 12°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 · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Hunters Spring Cabin is in Montana’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Troy Downing (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 moneyTroy DowningU.S. Representative · Montana’s 2nd 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 Hunters Spring Cabin, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana
Dear Troy Downing, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Hunters Spring Cabin, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Hunters Spring Cabin 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. Hunters Spring Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Hunters Spring Cabin. 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 Hunters Spring Cabin (Lewis & Clark 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 Hunters Spring Cabin, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Hunters Spring Cabin, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Hunters Spring Cabin 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. Hunters Spring Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Hunters Spring Cabin. 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 Hunters Spring Cabin (Lewis & Clark 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 Hunters Spring Cabin, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Hunters Spring Cabin, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Hunters Spring Cabin 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. Hunters Spring Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Hunters Spring Cabin. 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 Hunters Spring Cabin (Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com