Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest

Located in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest near Butte, Montana, Delmoe Lake was a beautiful place to camp for a night. The area is popular with OHV’s and you will pass multiple staging areas on the drive up as well as many others camping along the way up to the campground. It’s a ~10 mile drive on a well maintained gravel road that is accessible from I-90 by taking either exit 241 or 233 (we're driving cross country so it was important to find some place that was easy to get to yet far enough away to feel like we were out in nature). There are two camping loops as well as a day use area. Sites cost $5/night plus $3 for any additional vehicles (we had 2 cars so it was $8 for the night). Sites include a picnic table and fire ring, and there was ample firewood left by others for us to use. Pit toilets are also available. We were here in late July and there were a decent amount of mosquitos. Echoing the previous review, there was a fair amount of trash around but it was still a pleasant place to spend the night.

Lowland Campground located in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest north of Butte Montana is nice small very quiet campground with 11 sites and a large day use area. You will disconnected from the world hear as there is no cell phone service at this campground. The campground has a vault toilet at the entrance, two more are found in the day use area, one is just a short distance from the campground toilet. The campground has several new bear proof garbage bins. The site has a water pump, but the only pump appears to be in the day use area so you will want to drive to the pump to fill up your water jugs in order to avoid a long walk back to camp with those heavy water jugs. Each site has plenty of room to spread out. You will want to collect firewood before you arrive at the campground as there is nothing to harvest in the campground, even small twigs for starting a fire were hard to find. We had the campground to our selves when we visited, and the best part is the fee is only$5. Can't beat that price and have vault toilets, water and trash pins.

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Lowland Campground Review

Lowland Campground located in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest north of Butte Montana is nice small very quiet campground with 11 sites and a large day use area. You will disconnected from the world hear as there is no cell phone service at this campground. The campground has a vault toilet at the entrance, two more are found in the day use area, one is just a short distance from the campground toilet. The campground has several new bear proof garbage bins. The site has a water pump, but the only pump appears to be in the day use area so you will want to drive to the pump to fill up your water jugs in order to avoid a long walk back to camp with those heavy water jugs. Each site has plenty of room to spread out. You will want to collect firewood before you arrive at the campground as there is nothing to harvest in the campground, even small twigs for starting a fire were hard to find. We had the campground to our selves when we visited, and the best part is the fee is only $5. Can't beat that price and have vault toilets, water and trash pins.

Ranger Review of the Grub Stick

Received the Grub Stick several weeks ago and have used it on several outings since. Have to say this is just fun to use. Cooking over a fire is always great fun and having the Grub Stick just gives you way more options for fire cooking fun. It was a blast coming up with ideas to try. We really likes the bacon bowl feature, but a hint on using it “don't use thick cut bacon” it takes to long to cook and is hard to get the bacon clip over it. We have cooked up hot dogs, sausages, made eclairs, S'mores, Chocolate chip cookie s'mores, Biscuits, biscuit s'mores, Bacon bowls stuffed with just about anything we could find. The big down fall of the Grub Stick is that we didn't have enough of them and waiting for someone to finish was a downier, especially when you had a new idea you wanted to try.

Basin Canyon Campground and Picnic Area in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest is a bare basics campground with only 2 sites(an old 3rd site can be found but is over grown and falling apart). Be careful not to drive right by the site as the sign for the campground is missing. The two campsites sit on the Boulder River side of the road. A picnic area and two outhouses sit on the other side of the road. One of the two sites is a very nice site next to the river with a picnic table and metal fire ring. This site appears to get heavy use as the ground is all bare dirt. The other site sits closer to the road in a grassy area. The second site also has a metal fire ring and picnic table. This campground does not have water(but looks like it may have in the past) and does not have trash service, so be sure to pack out your trash and bring plenty of water for your stay. Across the road is the picnic area which has three large picnic tables and two concrete fire pits. A rock ring fire pit has been placed in the picnic area and this might be a safer place for a fire at the picnic site do to the encroaching forest at the concrete fire pit location. The picnic area could use a little maintenance. The picnic area side of the road has two outhouses. These are old school wooden framed forest service outhouses, but are very nice, clean and well stocked inside. I did find one more former campsite/picnic site that has pretty much been reclaimed by the forest and the table is falling apart.

Wow this was a very unique camping experience up in the boulders. Had a lot of fun walking my dogs and cat up in there. (Yes my cat goes camping too). There was no water pumps on the campground, however there is a nice little creek running through that one could get water. Also there were vault toilets and the one we used was closer to the entrance of the campground. It was clean, however the door didn't lock. Really wish we didn't go on a holiday weekend as it sounded like a dirt bike ho-down and wasn't very relaxing. We will try again during the week or a non holiday weekend. The stars were gorgeous, and the bird watching was phenomenal. At least when there weren't dirt bikes.

It is a very off the beaten path, tucked away in the woods, true getaway from the busy city life. Travel south on 278 from Wisdom, MT and take the chance on an 18 mile gravel road to find a place only you see in pictures and read about in magazines. Drive through open cattle ranges and find a beautiful campground nestled up to 2 small lakes connected by a shallow channel. Clear water to see the bottom where it's shallow enough. No motorized boats allowed, so bring your own kayak or canoe and a fishing pole or two to enjoy the refreshing waters at the bottom of the mountains. Even in July, you can see snow atop the mountains on the Montana-Idaho border.

• Large, open water front spaces to set up "shop"
• Site 10 had room for 3 tents, 3 SUVs, 1 picnic table + extra side table, fire ring/grill, canoe, chairs around fire and shoreline, laundry lines
• Not crowded (maybe 5 sites taken when we were there)
• Bathrooms are clean (but no locks or hand sanitzer...at least the one I used)
• Water available
• One bear storage container at front entrance
• Must pack up and take out your own trash (no bear proof trash cans)
• Fire rings with grills available

My family and I had such a blast here. We stayed at a different campground the last time we visited Montana and it wasn’t a very good place, so we definitely did more research beforehand and found that this place was a real gem and it truly was. The lake nearby was incredible. We spent a lot of our time here. We also found some amazing hikes that were less than 30miles away from the campground and they were incredible. Hiking in Montana is amazing and hands down worth it. I’m from Washington where hiking is perfect, but Montana gives it a run for its money. Worth the drive! The campground was clean and well kept. Decent size spaces which was nice. Lots of shade which was awesome!

This was a bit tight pulling our 35 ft fifth wheel, but just be careful with a couple of the turns. The campground roads need some work in spots - there were several potholes as deep as 6-8 inches - enough to jar your teeth out If you're not watching for them.

Sites are very nicely spaced with lots of sunlight and dappled shade. Everyone was pretty quiet and well mannered. I was a bit surprised by how empty this campground was during the week, despite it being summer. Mon-Fri I would say it wasn't more than 30-50% full. It did fill up on the weekends.

Stayed here two weeks in July. You're at 6000ish feet, so the weather is delightful in the summer. Some nice hiking is within walking distance, and Echo Lake is a decent workout from the campground.

There are several pressurized water spigots spaced around the campground, but oddly, they don't have a standard garden hose fitting. I have a 55 gallon bladder I fill and then I use a pump to fill my rig from the bladder. This saves me from having to move the rig to get water. The camp hosts site did have a standard hose fitting and he had no problem letting me fill the bladder several times during my stay.

There is a day use area (Red Bridge) across the street on Georgetown Lake, but there's not much there. Only a couple picnic tables and a boat ramp. No shade. No place to let the dogs swim and play fetch. I recommend going east back up Montana Route 1 a mile or so to the Grassy Point boat launch. Large parking lot with plenty of doggie access to the water for playing and fetching.

All in all, a nice place to spend a couple weeks.