Wapiti Cabin
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 16:36 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Wapiti Cabin is a primitive, rustic, log structure open year-round for recreational enjoyment. It provides access to several trails for summer hiking and biking, and winter skiing and snowmobiling. The cabin can be accessed by vehicle from July 1 through December 1 (weather and snow permitting), but winter access requires a trek of up to six miles on skis, snowshoes, or by snowmobile. Taylor Fork Road (FS 134) is open year round, but may have limited access due to snow. Wapiti Creek Road (FS 2522) does not fully open to vehicles until July 1. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and they must bring several of their own amenities. During the spring and fall, guests are encouraged to call the Hebgen Lake Ranger District at (406) 823-6961 for road conditions and access to the cabin. Keep reading
Recreation
The junction of Taylor Fork Road and Wapiti Creek offers several trailheads leading into the Cabin Creek Wildlife Management Area. Mountain bikers will find several route options in the Wapiti Loops in Taylor Fork, including a 14-mile route that begins at the cabin. For winter sports enthusiasts, the Big Sky Snowmobile Trail is within 2 miles of the cabin, and it offers some of Montana's best backcountry snowmobiling. The area around Wapiti Creek also offers good terrain for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. The cabin is open to stock, and there is a corral available for horses. A hitching rail surrounds the cabin for stock use. Please keep in mind that fall hunting season brings big game hunters to this area.
Facilities
This is a primitive cabin. It can sleep up to four people, with a maximum group size of six people for overnight use. There is a seven night maximum stay per group. A wood stove is available for heat, and an old-fashioned wood cook stove is also available. Basic ammeneties such as an axe, shovel, bucket and table with chairs are also provided. Four cots are available. An outhouse is located outside and adjacent to the cabin. Firewood is supplied for indoor use only . Renters must gather their own wood for outdoor campfires. A corral is available for stock. A stock pot is provided for boiling water. It is strongly recommended that campers bring their own back country cookware and dishes for use. No electricity or water is available. Guests must bring their own drinking water, flashlights and lanterns, bedding, matches, extra toilet paper, garbage bags, dish soap, and other necessities. The cabin will need to be cleaned and all trash removed prior to departure.
Natural Features
Wapiti Cabin is situated inbetween the Madison Mountain Range and the Gallatin Mountain Range at an elevation of 7,000 feet. Beyond the meadow, guests at the cabin can see dense stands of evergreens and rugged mountain ridges. Wapiti Creek flows nearby. The area around Wapiti Cabin is grizzly bear habitat, but it's also home to deer, elk, moose, and other wildlife.
Nearby Attractions
Wapitit Cabin is within the vacinity of West Yellowstone, MT, home of the West Gate to Yellowstone National Park. It is also close to Hebgen and Earthquake lakes as well as the Earthquake Lake Visitor Center.
What the agency tells you
Please be aware that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service is not cleaning this rental cabin between user visits. To protect health and safety for all cabin visitors, we recommend you clean all "high touch surfaces" when you arrive and before you leave. Cleaning supplies are not provided; you are expected to bring your own. Leave nothing behind - pack it in, pack it out. Please take any garbage, food, books, and personal items with you. Immediately report any unsanitary conditions to the local Ranger Station.
Make sure to have the lock combination for the cabin door; the combination code to the cabin is included in the confirmation e-mail or letter.
No garbage service. Please bring garbage bags and pack out all trash and personal belongings.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Winter travel can be difficult due to deep snow, wind, low visibility, and trail signs/markers being obscured by snow. Always travel with others, and familiarize yourself with the area and with traveling in avalanche terrain.
Grizzly bears frequent the area; store all attractants (coolers, food, beverages, stock feed, garbage, toiletrie, etc,) inside the cabin. Hebgen Lake Ranger staff will be patrolling for compliance with the Food Storage Order in the cabin vicinity throughout the season.
Please use the corral at the cabin for holding stock and scatter manure to be considerate of other cabin users.
Hay and feed brought to the site for stock must be certified weed-free.
Candles are prohibited inside the cabin.
Do not leave pets unattended.
FIREWOOD ROUNDS IN WOODSHED ARE LIMITED TO INDOOR USE ONLY. Availability of firewood cannot be guaranteed. Firewood is not provided June 1st to September 30th.
Weather conditions vary. Please check forcast and road conditions before your trip.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 20 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- “An outhouse is located outside and adjacent to the cabin.”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Guests must bring their own drinking water, flashlights and lanterns, bedding, matches, extra toilet paper, garbage bags, dish soap, and other necessities.”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Night sky · 223rd darkest of 501 in MT
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 16:36 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:36 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 16:36 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.
| AREA WAPITI CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 20 ft | 325 ft | $65 |
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
Eldridge Guard StationGallatin National Forest · 2.4 mi
Beaver Creek Cabin (MT)Gallatin National Forest · 9.3 mi
Red Cliff CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 9.5 mi
Cabin Creek CabinCabin Creek Wildlife And Recreation Management Area · 12 mi
Yellow Mule CabinGallatin National Forest · 12 mi
Cabin Creek CampgroundGallatin National Forest · 12 miDuring the spring and fall, guests are encouraged to call the Hebgen Lake Ranger District at (406) 823-6961 for road conditions and access to the cabin.
Summer access (May 16 to December 1): For summer access from West Yellowstone, proceed north on Highway 191 for approximately 33.5 miles. Turn left on Taylor Fork Road/Forest Service Road 134 and proceed approximately 3.5 miles. Turn left on Forest Service Road 2522 and proceed approximately 1.5 miles. The cabin is located on the right side of the road.
Winter access (December 2 to May 15): Snowmobiling: From West Yellowstone, Montana, proceed north on Highway 191 for approximately 33 miles to the Sage Creek Trailhead parking area off of Highway 191. Follow the newly relocated Big Sky/Carrot Basin Trail for eight miles. Please note that the cabin is located on the edge of a winter wildlife closure area. Off trail snowmobiling around the cabin is permitted only to the south of the access road (on the left side, if traveling to and beyond the cabin).
Trail grooming occurs December 1 - March 31 depending on snow conditions. View grooming report at destinationyellowstone.com/snowmobile. Trail maybe impassable due to weather.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Big Sky, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 28°F, day 51°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 4°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Wapiti Cabin 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 Wapiti Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Wapiti Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Wapiti 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. Wapiti Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Wapiti 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 Wapiti Cabin (Gallatin 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 Wapiti Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Wapiti Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Wapiti 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. Wapiti Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Wapiti 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 Wapiti Cabin (Gallatin 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 Wapiti Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Wapiti Cabin, Gallatin National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Wapiti 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. Wapiti Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Wapiti 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 Wapiti Cabin (Gallatin National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com