Palisades Campground
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $8From, per site
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
The Palisades Recreation Area is located on the Upper Madison River, 5 river miles upstream of Ruby Creek Recreation Area and 25 miles south of Ennis. The campground has 10 camping sites with 2 accessible vault toilets and a campground host pad. A separate day use site with a paved boat launch and parking area is located near the campground.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…has 10 camping sites with 2 accessible vault toilets and a campground host pad. A separate day use site…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $8 with nothing added. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
Every line of the receipt · 7
What you actually pay
“$8/night, $5 per additional vehicle.” · the Bureau of Land Management’s own fee record
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($8), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
How we know this receipt · 6
rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
Wall Creek CabinBeaverhead National Forest · 2.6 miRuby Creek CampgroundDillon Field Office · 4.5 mi
West Fork Madison CampgroundBeaverhead National Forest · 8.7 mi
Riverview CampgroundBeaverhead National Forest · 8.7 miClover Meadows Dispersed Camping and Picnic AreaBeaverhead National Forest · 9.1 mi
Madison River (MT)Beaverhead National Forest · 9.2 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Big Sky, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 28°F, day 51°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 4°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
Palisades Campground 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 →