Wurtz 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 28 of the next 30 nights read 16:40 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
Wurtz Cabin is located just south of the Canadian border, on the North Fork Road near the North Fork of the Flathead River. It is listed on the National Historic Register, offering guests a glimpse into the past. It provides access to a variety of recreational activities, including hiking, boating, fishing and viewing wildlife. The cabin can accommodate up to 12 people and is fully accessible. It can be accessed by vehicle, however the North Fork Road is gravel and only intermittently plowed in the winter. Four-wheel drive and chains are recommended for passage during winter months. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities. The majority of the road from Columbia Falls to Wurtz Cabin is gravel, so be prepared for dust during your drive and at the cabin. Keep reading
Recreation
In addition to wildlife viewing, visitors can enjoy canoeing, kayaking and fishing in the nearby river. Visitors also enjoy exploring the surrounding terrain on various hikes through the area. Cross country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling are available in the winter. Glacier National Park is nearby, offering scenic driving and opportunities for hiking. It can be accessed at Polebridge, south of the cabin.
Facilities
The two-story, rustic log cabin has a covered front porch and flat, grassy lawn. Amenities include a propane cook stove, propane lights, a propane heate, a wood stove and an outdoor vault toilet. Two double beds and eight single beds are provided. The kitchen is equipped with a table and chairs, as well as basic cooking and eating utensils. No water or electricity is available. Guests will need to bring water, food, bedding, flashlights, garbage bags and any other necessities. Click here for more cabin details.
Natural Features
The cabin was originally built by Frank and Ella Wurtz, who first settled the land in 1913 and expanded their home as their family grew in number. The family lived on-site through the 1960s and volunteers helped the Forest Service restore the building to its current structure. The rear of the cabin is lined with a stand of dense conifers. The front of the cabin faces a grassy lawn that overlooks a line of pine trees with the snow-capped Livingston Range in Glacier National Park visible in the distance.
Nearby Attractions
Polebridge Mercantile is located south of Wurtz and has limited supplies.
What the agency tells you
There is a maximum stay of 3 consecutive nights with a total of 7days per calendar year. Check-out time is 1200 pm. Check-in time is 2 pm.
Drinking water is not available at the cabin.
Grizzly bears may frequent the area; please keep all food, beverages, coolers and garbage inside the cabin at all times.
Everything else this campground posts · 12
The cabin remains locked; a combination lock code will be contained in your reservation confirmation letter.
Minor maintenance work may occur while you are staying at the cabin; for more information contact the Hungry Horse Glacier View Ranger District at (406) 387-3800, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
There are several closed buildings on the site, some are planned for restoration;f please respect the closures.
Please help conserve propane by minimizing the lights you have on and keeping the thermostat to 55 when you are not in the cabin.
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack-it-in, pack-it-out' facility.
The firewood provided is for heat only; please do not deplete the supply by using it for outside fires.
Pets and livestock are not allowed at cabin
Firewood is available October 1st to May 1st.
Tents, RVs, and campers are not allowed on premises.
Commercial use of the cabin is prohibited.
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.
This is a remote cabin that may be unoccupied for extended periods of time. Mice may be present in cabin - there are supplies to trap mice and remove safely in cabin. Please do your part to help mitigate rodents by picking up food crumbs, cleaning thoroughly, and trapping mice if they are present.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…heate, a wood stove and an outdoor vault toilet. Two double beds and eight single beds are…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…is available. Guests will need to bring water, food, bedding, flashlights, garbage bags and any…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Night sky · 97th darkest of 501 in MT
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 16:40 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:40 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 · 15
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 16:40 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 WURTZ CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 50 ft | 701 ft | $75 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Ford CabinFlathead National Forest · 1.0 mi
Schnaus CabinFlathead National Forest · 3.7 mi
Kintla Lake CampgroundGlacier National Park · 4.2 mi
Hornet LookoutFlathead National Forest · 5.5 mi
Ben Rover CabinFlathead National Forest · 9.3 mi
Bowman Lake CampgroundGlacier National Park · 9.4 miFrom Columbia Falls, travel north on Nucleus Avenue and turn east onto Railroad Street at the stop sign. The road becomes North Fork Road as it travels over the railroad overpass. Drive past the Schnaus and Ford rental cabins, and Wurtz is located on the west side of the road. Use caution during the winter, as the gravel road is only intermittently plowed. Chains and four-wheel drive are required for passage. The majority of the road from Columbia Falls to Wurtz Cabin is gravel, so be prepared for dust during your drive and at the cabin.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Polebridge, MT
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 17°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
Wurtz 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 Wurtz Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana
Dear Ryan K. Zinke, I’m a constituent in Montana’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Wurtz Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Wurtz 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Wurtz Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Wurtz 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 Wurtz Cabin (Flathead 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 Wurtz Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana
Dear Steve Daines, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Wurtz Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Wurtz 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Wurtz Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Wurtz 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 Wurtz Cabin (Flathead 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 Wurtz Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana
Dear Tim Sheehy, I’m a constituent in Montana. I tried to camp at Wurtz Cabin, Flathead National Forest, Montana, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Wurtz 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Wurtz Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Wurtz 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 Wurtz Cabin (Flathead National Forest, Montana) via campanac.com