U.S. Forest Service · Kootenai National Forest · MT
Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental
Not on the booking systemrecreation.gov lists none of the 1 campsites the agency files here, in any month asked. Whatever these sites are, a reservation isn’t how you get one.
Reservable everywhere but bookable nowhere.Ask the agency →
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- Sites
- 1None on recreation.gov
7,230 ftElevation
1,219 ftWater · an unnamed pond
11.6 miNE of Eureka, MT
0%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 148th darkest of 501 in MT
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
Recreation Facilities Natural Features
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
What the agency tells you
Rule
No longer a rental
Source: recreation.gov facility notices, quoted verbatim · Sep 9, 2026
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Source: Recreation.gov campsite records · Aug 23, 2026
Facilities
- Toilets
- Pit Toilets
- PIT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records
Source: counted from this campground’s own campsite records, shown above · Sep 12, 2026
Nothing on the booking system
recreation.gov lists none of the 1 campsites the agency files here. Whatever these sites are, a reservation isn’t how you get one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
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.
Free forever, no booking kickbacks.
Every line of the receipt · 9
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
Reservation fee, booked online$8
One fee per reservation, however many nights you book, and it’s non-refundable. $9 if you book by phone, $3 in person.
Pass discounts only apply to the recreation (or use) fee for the facility. Other charges such as electricity or water hookups, reservation or other fees are not eligible for a discount.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s nothing to add the $8 booking fee to. We won’t total a receipt with a number missing from it.
If your plans changerecreation.gov
Change fee, moving to dates outside your booking$10
Cancellation fee$10
Cancelling the day before, or the day of$10 + your first night
No-show$20 + your first night
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 · 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 9, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
Type not stated1
Aerial · Esri World Imagery
Sites: recreation.gov (RIDB), coordinates as published · Aug 23, 2026
Imagery: Esri World Imagery
| AREA MT. WAM LOOKOUT CABIN RENTAL | 001 | type not stated | 1,246 ft |
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.
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate48.95528, -114.81083
The mapSee it on the map
The driveDirections ↗
The phone406-296-2536
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗
Where it is
Also near hereBig Therriault Lake CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 3.3 miTuchuck CampgroundFlathead National Forest · 9.8 miGrave Creek CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 10 mi
Ninko CabinFlathead National Forest · 12 mi
Hornet LookoutFlathead National Forest · 15 miSwisher Lake CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 15 mi
Ninko CabinFlathead National Forest · 12 miHornet LookoutFlathead National Forest · 15 miSwisher Lake CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 15 miSource: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Tonight33°Mostly Clear
Saturday49°Mostly Sunny3% rain
Saturday Night28°Partly Cloudy7% rain
Sunday44°Sunny
NWS forecast for Indian Springs, MT
Source: National Weather Service, MSO forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026
Who answers for this land
Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental 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 →
Who can change it · 3
Reservable on paper, bookable nowhere
The agency’s own record marks Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental reservable, and recreation.gov lists none of its campsites. The draft asks why, and what it would take to fix it.
- The member who votes the moneyRyan K. ZinkeU.S. Representative · Montana’s 1st 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
To Ryan K. Zinke
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental is reservable and not bookable
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental, Kootenai National Forest, Montana is a federal campground the U.S. Forest Service records as reservable, and recreation.gov lists none of its 1 campsites, in any month asked. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why isn’t Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental on the booking system, and what would it take to put it there? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com
To Steve Daines
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental is reservable and not bookable
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental, Kootenai National Forest, Montana is a federal campground the U.S. Forest Service records as reservable, and recreation.gov lists none of its 1 campsites, in any month asked. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why isn’t Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental on the booking system, and what would it take to put it there? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com
To Tim Sheehy
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental is reservable and not bookable
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental, Kootenai National Forest, Montana is a federal campground the U.S. Forest Service records as reservable, and recreation.gov lists none of its 1 campsites, in any month asked. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why isn’t Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental on the booking system, and what would it take to put it there? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Mt. Wam Lookout Cabin Rental (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com
How we know this · 4
Contacts: Contact forms from @unitedstates/congress-legislators · Sep 9, 2026
The figures in these drafts: Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program: Background and Issues for Congress (CRS Report RS20643) · Updated December 4, 2025 · “The ship’s final procurement cost was $13,316.5 million (i.e., about $13.3 billion) in then-year dollars.”
The figures in these drafts: Salary Table 2026-GS, Incorporating the 1% General Schedule Increase, Effective January 2026 (U.S. Office of Personnel Management) · Effective January 2026 · “Grade 5, Step 1: $34,799 (annual rate, before locality pay).”
The figures in these drafts: Update to Civilian Position Full Fringe Benefit Cost Factor, Federal Pay Raise Assumptions, and Inflation Factors used in OMB Circular No. A-76 (OMB Memorandum M-08-13) · March 11, 2008 · “the civilian position full fringe benefit cost factor needs to be adjusted downward, from 36.45 percent to 36.25 percent”
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: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Sites on recreation.gov: recreation.gov’s own month availability payload for this facility, asked for October 2026 and November 2026. It names 0 of the 1 campsites the agency files here, and every one of them carries an answer either way. A campground nobody has read carries no answer at all, never a no. · Oct 14, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
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: Indian Springs, MT, 9.7 mi E (a census designated place). Straight line.