Whitetail Yurt
3Heads up3 fires, nearest 37 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 15 of the next 15 nights read 16:44 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Whitetail Yurt is nestled among the pine trees along the Yaak River within Whitetail Campground. Enjoy the comforts of a domed tent with a locking door, windows and wooden floor in this 16' yurt. Keep reading
Recreation
Opportunities abound from this location. Hiking, fishing, floating, hunting, scenic and historical driving tours are just some of the activities to be enjoyed.
Facilities
This rustic yurt sleeps three with floor room for a couple more. The provided bunk bed with mattresses has a twin as the top bunk and a full-size bed as the bottom bunk. There is also a table and four chairs. A vault toilet, firewood and potable water are available within the campground. Guests must bring cooking, cleaning and sleeping supplies. There is no heat source supplied. Guests are expected to pack out all trash and clean the yurt before leaving.
Natural Features
The yurt is situated adjacent to the Yaak River at an elevation of 2,918 feet within the Salish Mountain Range of the Rocky Mountains in the Kootenai National Forest. Yaak River and its many tributaries provide habitat for a variety of trout and big game animals. The Yaak Valley has been an important route through history as a trail for the Kootenai Indians, early prospectors and loggers.
Nearby Attractions
The town of Yaak is located approximately 5.3 miles northeast where you can grab a bite to eat or attend a community event.
What the agency tells you
The Yurt is secured with a combination lock; please call the Ranger District at (406)295-4693 prior to arrival to confirm the combination
Check-in 2:00 pm/Check-out 11:00 am
Potable water at the campground is available from Memorial Day through Labor Day. If you are staying before or after these dates make sure to bring enough from home for cooking, drinking and washing.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Access depends on weather conditions
Please pack out all trash and food and clean yurt 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.
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 visite dontmovefirewood.org
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…There is also a table and four chairs. A vault toilet, firewood and potable water are available within…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…chairs. A vault toilet, firewood and potable water are available within the campground. Guests must…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
- Stay limit
- 15 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Hunting
- Night sky · 172nd darkest of 501 in MT
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 16:44 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:44 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 16:44 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.
| WHITETAIL YURT | 09 | yurt | 35 ft | 129 ft | $25 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Mt. Baldy-Buckhorn RidgeKootenai National Forest · 5.3 miRed Top CampgroundKootenai National Forest · 6.6 mi
Garver Mtn. Lookout RentalKootenai National Forest · 7.1 mi
Upper Ford Cabin RentalKootenai National Forest · 8.9 miFrom Troy, Montana, follow Highway 2 west for 9.5 miles to Yaak Highway 508. Follow Yaak Highway 508 for 24 miles to Whitetail Campground. The yurt is in site 9.
From Bonners Ferry Idaho, follow HIghway 95 north for 3.5 miles, turn right on Highway 2 and follow for 20 miles. turn left onto Yaak Highway 508 and follow for 24 miles to Whitetail Campground. The yurt is in site 9.
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
Whitetail Yurt 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 Whitetail Yurt, Kootenai National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Whitetail Yurt, Kootenai National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Whitetail Yurt 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. Whitetail Yurt keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Whitetail Yurt. 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 Whitetail Yurt (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 Whitetail Yurt, Kootenai National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Whitetail Yurt, Kootenai National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Whitetail Yurt 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. Whitetail Yurt keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Whitetail Yurt. 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 Whitetail Yurt (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 Whitetail Yurt, Kootenai National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Whitetail Yurt, Kootenai National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Whitetail Yurt 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. Whitetail Yurt keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Whitetail Yurt. 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 Whitetail Yurt (Kootenai National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com