Upper Ford Cabin Rental
3Heads up3 fires, nearest 43 mi
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 29 of the next 30 nights read 16:32 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Upper Ford Ranger Station is situated near the Yaak River at an elevation of 2,984 feet within the Rocky Mountains in Kootenai National Forest. This remote cabin was built in 1926 and was at the heart of the Upper Ford Ranger District until 1942, when it was combined with the Yaak Ranger District and became a remote work center. The cabin is open year-round and is accessible by car. Several amenities are provided, but guests will need to bring some of their own supplies and gear. Keep reading
Recreation
Fishing in the Yaak River and nearby streams can yield a variety of trout, as well as kokanee salmon, mountain whitefish, large scale sucker and long nose dace. Big game hunting is also possible in the area. Northwest Peaks Scenic Area, which is located in the very northwest corner of the Yaak Area, offers several hiking trails. Equestrian trails are near the cabin. Winter brings skiing, snowmobiling and snowshoeing opportunities for all experience levels.
Facilities
This 900 square foot cabin can sleep up to 10 and comes furnished with 1 queen bed with mattress, 2 twin beds with mattresses and 1 double futon upstairs. A double futon and single futon are located downstairs. Other amenities include a propane stove, refrigerator, propane heater, table with benches, chairs, table settings for 8, kitchen tools and cleaning gear. An outhouse with vault toilet is located nearby. Across the road is a horse corral. Electricity and potable water are not available. Guests must bring enough water for drinking, cooking and washing. Items such as bedding, lanterns or flashlights, matches, first aid supplies, garbage bags, dish soap, dish towels and dish cloths are not available. Guests are expected to pack out all trash and clean the cabin before leaving.
Natural Features
The cabin is situated on the slope of Clark Mountain in the Purcell Range above the Yaak River drainage. The Yaak River and its many tributaries provide habitat for a variety of trout. The Yaak area is heavily forested and features several lakes scattered at varying elevations. The area is home to grizzly bears, wolves, elk, deer and a variety of smaller mammals and birds ( bear safety ).
What the agency tells you
The cabin is secured with a combination lock; please call the the Ranger District at (406) 295-4693 prior to arrival to confirm the combination
Check-in 2:00 pm / Check-out 11:00 am
Horses are not allowed in the cabin area. Please use the corrals provided. Certified weed-free hay is required
Everything else this campground posts · 7
There is no water; guests must provide their own for drinking, cooking and washing
Pets are allowed, but no pets on the furniture
Please pack out all trash and food and clean cabin before departure
There is a 5 consecutive day stay limit. A break of 7 days is requested before making another reservation.
Be aware, this facility is not cleaned between user visits. It is up to individual renters to bring their own cleaning supplies and clean before and after site use.
Learn more about the Kootenai 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 dontmovefirewood.org.
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
- “…and cleaning gear. An outhouse with vault toilet is located nearby. Across the road is a horse…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Electricity and potable water are not available.”
- Stay limit
- 15 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Hunting
- Winter sports
Full this Saturdayread 16:32 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:32 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.
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 · 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 16:32 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.
| UPPER FORD CABIN RENTAL | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 126 ft | $75 |
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
Garver Mtn. Lookout RentalKootenai National Forest · 6.3 miPete Creek CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 7.1 miCaribou CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 7.7 mi
Whitetail YurtKootenai National Forest · 8.9 miWhitetail CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 8.9 mi
Mt. Baldy-Buckhorn RidgeKootenai National Forest · 13 miFrom Troy, Montana, take US Highway 2 west for 9.5 miles to Yaak Highway 508. Follow Yaak Highway 508 for 30 miles north to the town of Yaak. Follow Yaak 92 approximately 7 miles to the junction with Upper Ford Road 8025, stay to the right. The cabin is approximately 300 yards from this junction and is located on the right-hand side of the road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Yaak, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 28°F, day 53°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 14°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 Augusts are colder than the August 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
Upper Ford Cabin Rental 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
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 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
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 Upper Ford Cabin Rental, Kootenai National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Upper Ford Cabin Rental, Kootenai National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Upper Ford Cabin Rental 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Upper Ford Cabin Rental keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Upper Ford Cabin Rental. 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 Upper Ford Cabin Rental (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) 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 Upper Ford Cabin Rental, Kootenai National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Upper Ford Cabin Rental, Kootenai National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Upper Ford Cabin Rental 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Upper Ford Cabin Rental keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Upper Ford Cabin Rental. 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 Upper Ford Cabin Rental (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) 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 Upper Ford Cabin Rental, Kootenai National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Upper Ford Cabin Rental, Kootenai National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Upper Ford Cabin Rental 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Upper Ford Cabin Rental keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Upper Ford Cabin Rental. 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 Upper Ford Cabin Rental (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com