Seeley Lake Lolo Campground (MT)
1Heads up1 fire 27 mi away
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading; a database flag says not open
- A night
- $20From, per site
- Sites
- 3029 on recreation.gov
- Season
- May 28Opens May 28. No closing date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 12 notices
In the agency’s own words
Seeley Lake Campground is located on the western shore of Seeley Lake, a glacial-formed lake situated in a valley between the Swan and Mission mountain ranges. Seeley Lake is one of a half a dozen lakes within the valley known as the 'Chain of Lakes' through which the Clearwater River flows. Seeley Lake Campground is well known for its picturesque views of the Swan Range and for its towering Western larch trees. The campground receives heavy use and is a popular destination for swimming, boating, fishing, picnicking, and wildlife viewing. Keep reading
Recreation
The campground is popular for swimming, boating, paddling and picnicking. Anglers cast for a variety of freshwater fish including Kokanee salmon, bass, whitefish, pike, trout and perch, among other species. Water skiing is a popular activity on the lake. The Clearwater Canoe Trailhead just North of Seeley Lake offers excellent flat water for viewing wildlife such as blue herons and river otters. The water trail is popular with canoeists and kayakers as it stretches 3.5 miles, or a couple of hours, down the river. The Morrell Falls National Recreation Trail on the East side of the valley offers an incredible day hike exploring recent burns, dense forests, and a large waterfall.
Facilities
29 individual RV/Tent campsites are avaliable for reservation the Friday before Memorial Day to the Tuesday after Labor Day, when the campground gate closes for the season. The sites are equipped with a picnic table, fire ring with grill, and a paved parking stall. Accessible vault toilets, accessible flush toilets, drinking water and trash receptacles are available throughout the campground. Campground hosts are on site 24 hours a day. The 29 sites are just a short walk away from a spacious day-use area that includes two beaches, a roped-off swim area, a paved boat-launch, boat trailer parking and several picnic sites. Day-use facilities are open from 6:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m Mountain Time. No fees or reservations are required for day-use.
Natural Features
The campsites offer the chance to spend time with old growth Western larch trees, a coniferous-decidious tree with distinct needles that turn bright gold in Autumn. Many of these trees are over 500 years old and several feet in diameter. Just a short distance away is the Girard Grove, home of a Western larch tree over 1000 years old and more than seven feet in diameter, known as “Gus”. The area contains a wide variety of wildlife and is home to white-tailed deer, elk, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, moose, grizzly and black bears (learn about bear safety ). Both the bald and golden eagle reside in the forest, along with trumpeter swan, herons and dozens of varieties of ducks.
Nearby Attractions
The town of Seeley Lake, MT on the southeastern tip of the lake offers a variety of recreation services such as boat, canoe, and kayak rentals as well as guide services and resorts. Services like gas, groceries, restaurants, and lodging can also be found in town. Access to a variety of forests, sweeping views, mountain lakes, and rugged peaks can be discovered just a short drive up any of the nearby Forest Service roads. Just a day trip away from Seeley Lake, Glacier National Park is known for a variety of opportunities to explore alpine landscapes, active glaciers, and view unique wildlife. Contact the park for current conditions. Missoula, one of Western Montana’s outdoor recreation hubs is about an hour from Seeley Lake, MT. Missoula is a full-service city with 2 hospitals, an international airport, and access to services, hotels, and outdoor activities.
What the agency tells you
The Boyscout Bridge in Seeley Lake, Montana is permanently closed. To access this campground from the town of Seeley Lake, travel north on Montana Highway 83 for five miles (Passed the Seeley Lake Ranger Station). Turn left (west) onto Boyscout Road. Continue for approximately 4 miles and turn left (west) into the entrance of Seeley Lake Campground.
Notice: Beginning in 2024, check out time is at 1:00 p.m. Mountain Time. Check-in is at 3:00 p.m. Mountain Time. Please check-out on time so that attendents may prepare the campsite for the next guest.
Bears frequent the area; please store all food and attractants in a locked vehicle, or in a certified bear resistant container. Click here for more information.
Everything else this campground posts · 9
Bear resistant trash and food containers must be closed and secured by users after depositing items. Failure to secure containers could result in a citation.
Campfires must be completely extinguished before leaving campsite unattended.
Parking is allowed in the designated parking spur for each campsite only. Vehicles that do not fit will be charged an additional vehicle fee of $5.00 and must park in the day-use area. No parking along roadways.
Quiet hours are 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. This includes external and onboard gas-powered generators.
No utility hookups are avaliable.
Dogs must be leashed while in campgrounds. No dogs allowed in swimming beach.
Access to the campground in the early spring and late fall is closed, roads are not plowed, gate is closed.
Click here for more information on the Lolo National Forest.
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 https://www.dontmovefirewood.org/
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 30
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 64 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets · Vault Toilets
- “…and a paved parking stall. Accessible vault toilets, accessible flush toilets, drinking water and trash…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…vault toilets, accessible flush toilets, drinking water and trash receptacles are available throughout the…”
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 32 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, Lake, River, Beach
- Beachcombing
- Berry Picking
- Biking
- Birding
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Jet Skiing
- Kayaking
- Motor Boat
- Paddle Boating
- Paddling
- Picnicking
- Night sky · 376th darkest of 501 in MT
- Bortle 2
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Forest Service says
- Yes
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 29 of the 30 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 17
What you actually pay
“Vehicles that do not fit must deposit an additional vehicle fee of $5.00 and must park in the day-use area.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $20 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
30 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 29 mapped sitesAll 30 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 29 of the 30 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. 30 of the 30 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| 1 | SLS1 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 134 ft | 905 ft | 951 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS10 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 131 ft | 625 ft | 569 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS11 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 131 ft | 596 ft | 442 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS12 | standard nonelectric | 53 ft | 135 ft | 717 ft | 530 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS13 | standard nonelectric | 62 ft | 135 ft | 817 ft | 655 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS2 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 134 ft | 860 ft | 817 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS3 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 149 ft | 945 ft | 917 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS4 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 112 ft | 796 ft | 807 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS5 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 112 ft | 792 ft | 880 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS6 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 97 ft | 661 ft | 759 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS7 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 97 ft | 656 ft | 828 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS8 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 105 ft | 553 ft | 776 ft | $20 |
| 1 | SLS9 | standard nonelectric | 42 ft | 130 ft | 425 ft | 688 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS14 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 161 ft | 490 ft | 754 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS15 | standard nonelectric | 51 ft | 161 ft | 464 ft | 912 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS16 | standard nonelectric | 52 ft | 131 ft | 295 ft | 892 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS17 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 131 ft | 294 ft | 766 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS18 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 78 ft | 314 ft | 642 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS19 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 93 ft | 401 ft | 620 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS20 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 78 ft | 357 ft | 565 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS21 | standard nonelectric | 29 ft | 113 ft | 466 ft | 421 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS22 | standard nonelectric | 64 ft | 113 ft | 510 ft | 468 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS23 | standard nonelectric | 57 ft | 106 ft | 518 ft | 336 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS24 | standard nonelectric | 19 ft | 106 ft | 412 ft | 234 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS25 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 125 ft | 435 ft | 262 ft | $20 |
| 2 | SLS26 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 125 ft | 311 ft | 156 ft | $20 |
| 3 | SLS27 | standard nonelectric | 23 ft | 116 ft | 203 ft | 316 ft | $20 |
| 3 | SLS28 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 116 ft | 149 ft | 208 ft | $20 |
| 3 | SLS29 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 148 ft | 151 ft | 63 ft | $20 |
| S&P | Standard Campsite | type not stated | 49 ft | $20 |
25 of 30 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
River Point Lolo Campground (MT)Lolo National Forest · 0.6 mi
Big Larch CampgroundLolo National Forest · 1.2 mi
Double Arrow LookoutLolo National Forest · 1.9 miHidden Lake CampgroundLolo National Forest · 4.1 mi
Lake Inez Point 6 (Group Camp Site)Lolo National Forest · 7.2 mi
Lakeside Campground8.3 miNote: The Boyscout Bridge in Seeley Lake, Montana is permanently closed. This campground must be accessed from the North entrance of Boyscout Road. The following directions account for this detour:
- From I-90 take exit 109 for MT-200 E and travel for 32.3 mi. Turn left onto MT-83 N and travel 14 mi to the town of Seeley Lake, MT. Continue north on Montana Highway 83 for 5 mi (Passed the Seeley Lake Ranger Station). Turn left onto Boyscout Road. Continue for approximately 4 mi and turn left into the entrance of Seeley Lake Campground.
- For campsites in Loop 1: Take the first right after entering the campground and follow the one-way traffic loop.
- For campsites in Loop 2: Take the first left after entering the campground and follow the one-way traffic loop. Keep right at the fork to access sites 17-26.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Seeley Lake, MT
Typical weather
Typical May night 34°F, day 65°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 34°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
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
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Seeley Lake Lolo Campground (MT) 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 →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“the agency's own site records list "CELL PHONE SERVICE" on 30 of 30 campsites here”