CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
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U.S. Forest Service · Kootenai National Forest · MT

Whitetail Campground

3Heads up3 fires, nearest 37 mi
Wildfire
Upper Smith fire · 37 mi away · 4,848 acres · 41% contained · updated Sep 5, 2026
Wildfire
Parker Lake fire · 37 mi away · 1,531 acres · 1% contained · updated Oct 2, 2026
Wildfire
Silver fire · 41 mi away · 2,593 acres · 30% contained · updated Sep 8, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 2, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
OpenInside the published season, our reading
Season
May 1Opens May 1. No closing date published.
Drawn from the record · 2,920 ft · 63% tree cover · Yaak River within reach · Bortle 2 sky
2,920 ftElevation
157 ftWater · Yaak River
17.8 miNE of Moyie Springs, ID
63%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 173rd darkest of 501 in MT
Opens May 1. No closing date published.Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

The Whitetail Campground is located north of Troy on Yaak Hwy 508. The campground has 12 sites, including one host site, with tables and fire rings. Campground roads and parking spurs are gravel. Amenities include potable water, vault toilets, and an undeveloped access for small packable boats to the Yaak River.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…gravel. Amenities include potable water, vault toilets, and an undeveloped access for small packable boats…”
Drinking water
Yes
“…spurs are gravel. Amenities include potable water, vault toilets, and an undeveloped access for small…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
River
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026
Official page: Whitetail Campground →

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

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.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate48.82779, -115.81526
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today65°Widespread Frost then Mostly Sunny
Tonight36°Partly Cloudy
Saturday60°Areas Of Frost then Mostly Sunny6% rain
Saturday Night30°Partly Cloudy4% rain

NWS forecast for Yaak, MT

Source: National Weather Service, MSO forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical May night 35°F, day 65°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 35°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

90°32°10°

Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season

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: YAAK 9NNE, MT (USC00249187), 12 miles away and 165 ft higher
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

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Grizzly Peak7,441 acres · 4 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Northwest Peaks15,358 acres · 8 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
West Fork Yaak8,237 acres · 9 mi · inventoried roadless area

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

Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026

Who answers for this land

Ryan Zinke, official portrait

Whitetail Campground 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 →

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: Today falls inside the season the agency publishes, and it has posted nothing else. That reading is ours.
Season: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 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: 0.031 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: inside Yaak, MT (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