South Dickey Lake
This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
South Dickey Lake is a popular day use group picnic area on the shores of beautiful Dickey Lake. It provides access to a grassy swimming beach. There are 5 day use sites, but only one site can be reserved. All other sites are first come-first serve. Keep reading
Recreation
The lake provides ample opportunity for boating, fishing, swimming and water skiing. Anglers can expect a catch of kokanee salmon, kamloop and rainbow trout. A grassy lawn gently slopes down to the lake.
Facilities
The reservable group picnic area can accommodate up to 50 people and is equipped with two tables and campfire rings with grills. Accessible vault toilets and potable drinking water are also provided. The swimming beach is available for use, but is open to the public as well. This site is a day use area, open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Overnight camping is not allowed. Visitors who wish to stay overnight can make reservations at North Dickey Lake Campground.
Natural Features
The facility is located in northwestern Montana, next to 800-acre Dickey Lake. Larch and fir trees surround the lake and dot the landscape at the picnic area. It is situated at an elevation of about 3,100 feet. In the spring and early summer, the sound of the loon can often be heard from the beach.
Nearby Attractions
The facility is 20 miles from the United States-Canadian border, and 65 miles from the entrance to Glacier National Park.
What the agency tells you
Check in 10:00 am, Check-out 10:00 pm
Overnight camping is prohibited at this facility
Click here for more information on the Kootenai National Forest
Everything else this campground posts · 1
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 dontmovefirewood.org.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…campfire rings with grills. Accessible vault toilets and potable drinking water are also provided. The…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Accessible vault toilets and potable drinking water are also provided. The swimming beach is available…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Swimming
Nothing here to sleep in
The agency files 1 record here and marks it day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.
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 · 11
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 · 4
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 records · the site map
All 1 records
| SOUTH DICKEY LAKE | 1 | day use | yes | 235 ft |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
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
North Dickey LakeKootenai National Forest · 1.3 miNorth Dickey Lake CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 2.3 miGrave Creek CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 8.5 miUpper Stillwater Lake CampgroundFlathead National Forest · 10 miRed Meadow Lake CampgroundFlathead National Forest · 12 mi
Ninko CabinFlathead National Forest · 14 miFrom Eureka travel South on Hwy 93 for approximately 20 miles. Take a left on Lake Shore road 3788 and follow for 2 miles to the day use site.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Trego, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 17°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
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
South Dickey Lake 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
The agency’s own record files sites here and marks every one of them day use. The draft asks whether any could open to overnight camping, and if not, why.
- 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
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject South Dickey Lake has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. South Dickey Lake, Kootenai National Forest, Montana carries 1 record on the U.S. Forest Service’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? 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 South Dickey Lake (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject South Dickey Lake has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. South Dickey Lake, Kootenai National Forest, Montana carries 1 record on the U.S. Forest Service’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? 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 South Dickey Lake (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject South Dickey Lake has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. South Dickey Lake, Kootenai National Forest, Montana carries 1 record on the U.S. Forest Service’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? 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 South Dickey Lake (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com