West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau)
3Heads up3 fires, nearest 22 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 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:31 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
West Fork Cabin is a rustic Forest Service Guard Station located 39 miles northwest of Choteau, Montana, on the Rocky Mountain Front Range. The cabin is a stone’s throw from the North Fork Teton River and about 3.5 miles beyond Teton Pass Ski Resort. Open year-round, the cabin provides access to a wide range of summer and winter recreation activities such as hiking, fishing, horseback riding, cross country skiing and snowshoeing. This rustic cabin is accessible via paved county road, then gravel Forest Service Road. Keep reading
During the winter months when the ski area is operating, the Forest Service gravel road is plowed to the ski area. Beyond that point, guests will need to ski, show shoe or snowmobile to travel the last 3.5 miles to the cabin. Travel may be a challenge in early spring. The cabin is available year-round for rental, seven days a week. Contact the Ranger District for current road conditions.
Recreation
Recreation opportunities include hiking, horseback riding, fishing, snowmobiling, cross country skiing and snowshoeing. Downhill skiing is offered at the ski resort located about 3.5 miles from the cabin.
Facilities
The single room cabin has kitchen, dining area and sleeping area. It sleeps six guests with two sets of bunk beds and two folding cots. A vault toilet is located outside. The cabin is heated by propane, and a limited amount of firewood is provided for the wood stove. A propane cook stove is also included. Although a ramp leads into the cabin and outhouse, the interior is not designed to meet accessibility standards. No electricity or refrigerator is available so guests will need to bring coolers. The area is covered by a food storage order designed to minimize bear/human conflicts. All food must be stored in bear resistant containers or inside the cabin or a hard-sided vehicle when unattended. Potable water is available year-round at a hand pump outside the cabin. Guests should bring sleeping bags, food, toilet paper, trash bags, lanterns, towels, matches and first aid kit.
Natural Features
Set in the Rocky Mountain Front Range, the cabin sits in the valley of the North Fork Teton River near Mount Werner and Mount Wright. The Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest boasts 1,600 miles of streams and several small natural and man-made lakes. Native wildlife includes grizzly and black bears, white-tailed deer, bald eagles, lynx, bighorn sheep and grey wolves.
Nearby Attractions
Food, fuel and other supplies are available in Choteau, 39 miles from the cabin.
What the agency tells you
Entry into the cabin is by key. Check in/out time is 2:00 p.m. Please check your email for information on regarding key pickup and other important information. Contact the ranger district at (406) 466-5341 during normal office hours with questions. Please bring garbage bags; this is a “pack it in, pack it out” facility No pets allowed inside cabin Maximum occupancy is six. No camping units will be permitted at the cabin site. Large groups or trailers and RVs can utilize the campground just down the road from the cabin Bears frequent the area; all food must be kept unavailable to bears in approved containers or inside the cabin or a hard sided vehicle from March 1 through December 15 A maximum of nine head of stock can be kept in the corral. Stock must be fed 100% supplemental feed. All hay, grain, straw, cubes, pelletized feed or mulch must be certified as being noxious weed free or noxious weed seed free in accordance with Special Order L&C 97-10 Clean cabin prior to departure; a fee is charged if extra clean-up is required 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
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…of bunk beds and two folding cots. A vault toilet is located outside. The cabin is heated by propane,…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…or a hard-sided vehicle when unattended. Potable water is available year-round at a hand pump outside the…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:31 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:31 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 16:31 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
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 1 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. 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 WEST FORK CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 318 ft | 66 ft | $65 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Ear Mountain CabinRocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area · 10 miFrom Highway 89 about 5 miles north of Choteau, go west on Teton Canyon Road that becomes Forest Development Road (FDR) #144 at the Forest boundary. Stay on this road past the ski area about 3.5 miles to the road end. Cabin is located behind the locked gate to your left just after you cross the bridge. In the winter the road is not plowed beyond the ski area. Guests can park in the ski area parking lot. All vehicles parked overnight at either the snowmobile parking lot or the ski area parking lot will be issued a parking pass to put in their window by the district office when the cabin key is issued.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Rockport Colony, MT
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) 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 →
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 moneyTroy DowningU.S. Representative · Montana’s 2nd 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 West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau), Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana
Dear Troy Downing, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau), Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) 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. West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau). 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 West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) (Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, 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 West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau), Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau), Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) 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. West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau). 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 West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) (Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, 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 West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau), Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau), Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) 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. West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau). 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 West Fork Cabin (W of Choteau) (Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Management Area, Montana) via campanac.com