Judith Guard Station
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 16:37 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Judith Guard Station is a historic Ranger Station dating back to the early 1900s. Designated as a National Historic Site, the cabin is decorated with historically accurate furnishings and wallpaper. It is just a stone's throw from the Middle Fork of the Judith River and a small campground with a picnic area. Mandatory bear food storage requirements apply, with specfic compliance information posted at the cabin. The cabin, located about 30 miles south of Stanford, may be accessed by regular passenger vehicle until snow season. The road is usually plowed within 2 miles of the station, and a four-wheel-drive vehicle can often make the trip. In times of heavy snowfall, the last half-mile to the cabin may require a snowmobile, skis or snowshoes. Keep reading
Recreation
Hiking, OHVing, hunting and mountain biking opportunities abound. Nearby hunting includes deer and elk in designated areas. Snow shoeing and cross country skiing are popular activities during the winter months.
Facilities
The two-story frame building has a modern vault toilet outside and a porch with chairs. Furnishings include propane cook stove and heat, beds to fit eight guests, table and chairs plus cooking utensils are provided in the kitchen. Portable propane lanterns are available, but users must bring their own propane cylinders. A hand well with drinking water is available outside from May to September. No water is available during the winter so guests should bring plenty of water during this time period. Guests are asked to bring garbage bags, toilet paper, flashlights, bedding, an ice chest and all personal toiletries. Click here for more cabin details.
Natural Features
Judith Guard Station sits at an elevation of 5,000 feet on the northern banks of the Middle Fork of the Judith River. The region boasts wooded hills topped with Ponderosa Pine, lodgepole pine and Douglas fir. Wildlife in the area includes deer, elk, bear, bobcats and montain lions.
Nearby Attractions
Judith River State Wildlfe Management Area lies north of the cabin and Middle fork of the Judith River in close proximity .Grocery stores and gas is available in Stanford, about 30 miles from the cabin. Sapphire Village 5 miles to the northeast
What the agency tells you
The Guard Station is a historic site and is meant to be rented for use of the Guard Station itself. Due to the historic nature of this facility, campers and RVs may not be parked out front of the Station, but can be parked at the campground just down from the Guard Station. Not abiding by this historical preservation policy is grounds for eviction without refund.
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack in-pack out' facility
No water, electricity or sewer hookups available
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Cell phone reception is unreliable
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
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…two-story frame building has a modern vault toilet outside and a porch with chairs. Furnishings…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “A hand well with drinking water is available outside from May to September.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Archery
- Backpacking
- Biking
- Birding
- Cross Country Skiing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- OHV riding
- Snowmobile
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:37 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Tue, Oct 20. read 16:37 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 16:37 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
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 JUDITH GUARD STATION | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 292 ft | $60 |
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
Hunters Spring CabinLewis & Clark National Forest · 15 mi
Dry Wolf CabinLewis & Clark National Forest · 15 miDaisy Dean Camp Campground16 miJellison Place CampgroundLewis & Clark National Forest · 17 miFrom Great Falls, travel east on U.S. Highway 87 for about 63 miles to Windham, Montana, from Windham turn right off HWY 200/87 and head south for approximately 10 miles until the town of Utica. Turn right at Utica, continue south for approximately 13 miles on the county road. At the "Y" junction turn right nto the Middlefork road 822 and continue southwest for about 1 mile until you reack the "Y", stay to the left and continue for about 1 mile to the Judith Gaurd Station
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Sapphire Ridge, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 28°F, day 53°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
Judith Guard Station 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 Judith Guard Station, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana
Dear Troy Downing, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Judith Guard Station, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Judith Guard Station 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Judith Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Judith Guard Station. 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 Judith Guard Station (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 Judith Guard Station, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Judith Guard Station, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Judith Guard Station 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Judith Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Judith Guard Station. 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 Judith Guard Station (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 Judith Guard Station, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Judith Guard Station, Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Judith Guard Station 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Judith Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Judith Guard Station. 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 Judith Guard Station (Lewis & Clark National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com