Pole Creek Cabin
1Heads up1 fire 41 mi away
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 30 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 · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Pole Creek Cabin is unique in not only its quiet end-of-the-road location, but that it is also located along both a winter snowmobile trail and within the Pole Creek Cross Country Ski Area trail system. In the spring the area is full of wildflowers and wildlife to view and in the fall it would make an ideal hunting camp. The cabin was built in the mid-1950s by the E-La-Ka-Wee boy scouts for a summer camp retreat. In the early 1990s the cabin was refurbished and used as a winter snowmobile and ski warming hut. Winter access is possible from the Nordic Ski area parking lot at Forest Developed Road (FDR) 473 and Highway 16, but only by cross country skis or snowmobiles. Keep reading
Recreation
The cabin is conveniently located for access to a wide variety of year-round activities. Because this cabin is located on both ski and snowmobile trails, it is a great winter activity destination. Some of the summer activities that take place in and around the area include fishing, mountain biking, ATV riding, hiking and hunting.
Facilities
Pole Creek Cabin is a two room cabin that can sleep 4-6 people in the two sets of bunk beds with room on the floor for additional cots or sleeping bags. The main room contains a wood stove for heat, kitchen cabinets and counter, table, chairs and benches. Basic utensils are available in the cabinets. A fire ring and picnic table are just outside the door and a vault toilet is located nearby. Firewood is provided at the site. No drinking water, electricity, trash service or cook stove are provided. Guests should consider packing a cook stove and most other gear they would bring on a regular camping trip.
Natural Features
The Pole Creek Cabin is located at 8,200 feet elevation on the Powder River Ranger District nearest Buffalo, Wyoming. The cabin is surrounded by a lodgepole pine forest and is nestled along the edge of a meadow frequented by moose and a variety of other wildlife species. A short drive from the cabin, one can tour the scenic Crazy Woman Canyon or fish in nearby Tie Hack Reservoir.
Nearby Attractions
The town of Buffalo, Wyoming, is located within a half hour drive for amenities such as grocery stores, swimming pool, historic downtown and a museum.
What the agency tells you
Entry is by combination lock; contact the ranger district at (307) 684-7806 during office hours for combination
No drinking water is available at the cabin
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack it in, pack it out' facility
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Please clean cabin before leaving; cleaning supplies are provided
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 organisms by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Click here https://www.fs.usda.gov/main/bighorn/home for more information about the Bighorn National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…table are just outside the door and a vault toilet is located nearby. Firewood is provided at the…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…Firewood is provided at the site. No drinking water, electricity, trash service or cook stove are…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, River, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
Full this Saturdayread 16:38 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
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
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.
| POLE CREEK CABIN | Pole Creek Cabin | cabin nonelectric | 1,418 ft | $35 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Muddy Guard CabinBighorn National Forest · 2.8 mi
Sheep Mountain Fire LookoutBighorn National Forest · 3.1 mi
Lost Cabin CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 3.2 mi
South Fork (Wyoming)Bighorn National Forest · 5.9 mi
Tie HackBighorn National Forest · 6.2 mi
Circle Park CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 6.6 miFrom Buffalo, Wyoming, take State Highway 16 west 22 miles. Turn right on Forest Developed Road (FDR) 456 and travel approximately 1 mile to a large open meadow. The cabin is situated on the west side of the road, back in the trees 50 yards and can be hard to spot from FDR 456. Vehicles can be parked along the timber edge in front of the buck-and-rail wooden fence.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Buffalo, WY
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.
Who answers for this land
Pole Creek Cabin 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 →
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 moneyHarriet M. HagemanU.S. Representative · Wyoming, at-large
- Your senator, on the same appropriationCynthia M. LummisU.S. Senator · Wyoming
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn BarrassoU.S. Senator · Wyoming
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 Pole Creek Cabin, Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming
Dear Harriet M. Hageman, I’m a constituent in Wyoming, at-large. I tried to camp at Pole Creek Cabin, Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Pole Creek 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Pole Creek Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Pole Creek 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 Pole Creek Cabin (Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming) 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 Pole Creek Cabin, Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming
Dear Cynthia M. Lummis, I’m a constituent in Wyoming. I tried to camp at Pole Creek Cabin, Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Pole Creek 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Pole Creek Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Pole Creek 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 Pole Creek Cabin (Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming) 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 Pole Creek Cabin, Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming
Dear John Barrasso, I’m a constituent in Wyoming. I tried to camp at Pole Creek Cabin, Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Pole Creek 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Pole Creek Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Pole Creek 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 Pole Creek Cabin (Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming) via campanac.com