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U.S. Forest Service · Lewis & Clark National Forest · MT

Spring Creek Campground

The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
A night
$10From, per site
Drawn from the record · 5,270 ft · 20% tree cover · Spring Creek within reach · Bortle 2 sky
5,270 ftElevation
276 ftWater · Spring Creek
31 miNW of Harlowton, MT
20%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 77th darkest of 501 in MT

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Located only 4 miles from Highway 12, Spring Creek Campground is easily accessible. The 10 campsites are in a lush riparian zone along Spring Creek. Campers can wade in the creek, or fish Spring Creek Campground can only accommodate a maximum trailer length of 35 feet, and is not recommended for campers with large RVs. The campground is usually open from May through the middle of fall. An ATV trailhead in the campground connects to a non-motorized trail with sweeping views of the surrounding mountain ranges. All campgrounds on the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest are first-come, first-served. Keep reading

Reservations are not available. Camping is limited to 16 consecutive days in one location. A campground fee is required. Please pay at the self-serve campground fee station. Campsites cannot be reserved by simply paying for the site; camper must be present. A food storage order is in effect from March 1 st to December 1 st to prevent human-bear conflicts on the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. Store all unattended food and attractants properly. Please see Food Storage Order for specifics. Open and close dates can vary depending on snowfall conditions. Please call the local district office or check our website. Leashed dogs are welcome. Horses are not allowed in campgrounds. Motorized OHVs must stay on the campground road. The campgrounds include access to potable water during the warmer months, and all have at least one handicap accessible vault toilet. Each campsite has a fire ring and/or grill, and a picnic table. Even if water is unavailable, campground fees are still required.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…have at least one handicap accessible vault toilet. Each campsite has a fire ring and/or grill, and a…”
Drinking water
Yes
“…road. The campgrounds include access to potable water during the warmer months, and all have at least one…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek
Source: Stated in the agency description

Phone before you drive

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.

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
A night$10Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$20DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$10
Night for single unit$10
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$10
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$20

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($10), 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 · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
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: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate46.58639, -110.46667

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight38°Partly Cloudy
Saturday62°Mostly Sunny
Saturday Night35°Mostly Cloudy
Sunday56°Mostly Sunny

NWS forecast for Martinsdale Colony, MT

Source: National Weather Service, TFX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 30°F, day 58°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical February night 15°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°10°

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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: MARTINSDALE 3 NNW, MT (USC00245387), 9 miles away and 470 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

watch
Roadless
Spring Creek17,840 acres · 4 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 5, 2026

Who answers for this land

Troy Downing, official portrait

Spring Creek Campground is in Montana’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Troy Downing (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service’s own recreation database flags it not open and publishes no reason and no date. That’s a flag, not a notice.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 17, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.018 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 501 rated federal campgrounds in Montana · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
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: Martinsdale Colony, MT, 10.8 mi NW (a census designated place). Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026