Looking for the best options for tent camping near Elliston? Finding a place to camp in Montana with your tent has never been easier. Each spot offers quick access to one or more of Elliston, Montana's most popular destinations.
This campground covers 3 acres in southwest Montana.
Ladysmith Campground is a primitive campground near Boulder River. ACTIVITIES Camping: There are six primitive sites available on a first come, first served basis.
The Log Gulch Recreation Site provides visitors with 70 campsites with a 7 day stay limit. All but two of the campsites can accommodate RV or tent camping (or a combination of both); two campsites are tent-only sites. While tent camping is available at all campsites, only a limited number have grassy or optimally flat tent camping surfaces. Campsites are primitive, without hookups, but each campsite does have a fire pit and picnic table. Potable water is accessible at various locations throughout the area. Note, quiet hours are from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. (no generators during this time). Do not camp outside numbered sites. Camp hosts or staff members are typically available onsite 7 days a week, from Memorial Day through Labor Day. This site has a loading dock with a boat ramp on each side. Two docks with boat slips are also available on a first-come, first-served basis. Boat slips are included in the camping/day use fee. A fish cleaning station is also available from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. The recreation site also has a beach with an enclosed swimming area, available Memorial Day through Labor Day (no lifeguard on duty). Restrooms are available throughout the site, and the restroom closest to the beach has a changing room. Two ramada shelters are also available for public use. The upper ramada is available if group reservations are not in effect. The lower ramada is available on a first-come, first served basis. Call the Butte Field Office for reservation details. Hiking trails are accessible from the park.
$15 / night
The Indian Meadows Trailhead provides access into the Scapegoat Wilderness. The site is not usually accessible by passenger vehicles until late May.
General Notes: Provides access to the Scapegoat Wilderness. Food Storage order in effect. Limited stock campsites available.
Parking: Ample parking provided for large stock trailers.
Guide
This is a typical KOA. First the good: Friendly helpful staff until their gone at closing time. Little mini store with a few essentials. Clean bathrooms and showers and clean laundry room with several washers/dryers.$2.00 per load to wash. Can't remember how much to dry. Very cool pinball machine that costs 25 cents per game. Fun fun fun! Another bathroom/shower in middle of park but I never looked inside that one. 65 sites that most have full hook-up and pull-through. A few cool tent sites with gas BBQs. Some cool looking cabins but I never looked inside one. I'm here on 8/24/2024 and RV park is sold out except 3 pull-through sites. All tent sites were full. I don't know about the cabins. Cool playground for kids and large mostly gravel dog run. Edit added: AT&T has 5G and three bars. KOA has wifi but slow slow slow I got 3MPS so instead of KOA wifi I used my iPhone Personal Hotspot that worked great. THE BAD(and reason for only 3 stars): All gravel roads and sites throughout the park. Very close together. Some sites have a very narrow strip of grass. Some of the picknick tables need to be re-painted. Unfortunately while eating breakfast you could be 2 feet away from the next RV dumping their sewer. P.U. The luxury sites don't have that problem. They are at the end of each row and only have a neighbor on the drivers side. I think well worth the extra 17 bucks. Not ADA friendly. Very hard for someone with a walker to get around because of gravel roads/sites. Someone with a wheel chair near impossible. Has a nice handicap shower in main office building. Only problem is that once I take my walker in with me it's very tight and no room to move around. Not EV car friendly. There is a$250 fine and eviction if you plug in your car. The person at the front desk told me the$250 fine and eviction is because EVs overload the outdated system and cause a fire. This KOA is an older one and was wired before EVs. Each individual site has its own 30 amp and 50 amp circuit breaker. Some trees but few and far between. No pool or hot tub. Final thoughts: Make reservations well in advance if you can. This KOA is the best game in town and is mostly sold out in summer. I think(sorry I don't know for sure) there is only one other RV park in town and from what I can tell, it is a much older one. I would proceed with caution before I booked it. Good traveling. See you on the road.
Scout
We weren’t able to reserve a site but plenty of ff first come sites. Most sites are large that will accommodate a camper and boat trailer. All are back in.
Legend
Our goal is to leave an unbiased review for future campers. First, don’t check in until 2:00 PM. The billeting office is closed for lunch and doesn’t get back until 2:00. As you don’t have a site number and you’ll need a key for the utilities, it will not do you any good to arrive early. Using our RV GPS, we headed off I-90 onto US-12 into Helena. At West Helena we turned on Williams St., which brought us to the VA Medical Center, then less than a 1/4 mile further to the South Gate. The gate is locked. When we called 406-324-3970(main gate) prior to our arrival, we were told to park in front of the gate and call the number on the post to have security come and let us in. The private security guard checked our IDs, reservation confirmation email, and then called in our names and truck license plate number. We were then told to head to the three story building where the billeting office is located and park in front of the building near the stepped entrance. This is not a large base/post, so don’t worry about getting lost. A lot of reviews talked about going through the North Gate, but as of this writing, they are using the South Gate for arrivals and departures. The main gate barriers are too narrow for a large RV. The billeting office is on the first floor straight a few yards and to the right after you enter the building and also where the free laundry is located. The FamCamp campground (CG) was simple to find, and we went to pull through FHU site 7 with 50/30/20 AMP. Not all the sites in this small CG have 50 AMP. The pull through was easy enough to get into, but its narrow with 9” high cement curbs, which makes getting your sewer up and over a bit of a challenge. They placed a brick thing at each site to help level your sewer hose. Also, depending on how your stairs deploy, dealing with the curb can be a challenge. In our opinion, the cement curbs are a horrible design. This site’s gravel pad was not level, so we had to use our leveler blocks. Water pressure was good at about 50 psi. There’s no CG Wifi, but we had our Starlink, plus we got a 4 bar Verizon signal. There are 12 sites here with row 1-7 being FHUs with 50/30/20 AMP and the back row 8-12 are 30/20 AMP. The sites are close to each other. We had a large class A in the adjacent site and its slideout came to our large cement picnic table. There’s a small restroom building but no showers. There are 6 RV or Tent sites where you could dry camp. There’s no obvious water spigot, but there are grass watering spigots. We saw reviews about a camp host, but we did not notice one. We departed at 10:50 AM and billeting called wondering if we had departed. If you don't turn in your key by 11:00 AM, you are charged an extra day. We were not unsatisfied with our stay, especially the good service and free laundry. But for a three day stay, due to their check in/out procedures, and site challenges, we’ll pass on this CG in the future.
Scout
It is now day use only. 5am-10pm
Traveler
Best $10 campsites imaginable. I have always enjoyed able to roll up and there was an available site. Good for traders up to 23ft and even has water and power sites. Sweet little secret gem of a campground and centrally located close enough range of possibilities to go see around Central Montana. Bring bug spray.
Scout
Maybe one acceptable loop, perhaps mostly for boaters. But there are 3 other loops: nothing is labeled, so good luck in finding your spot. The Manager site is not labeled either, and she was of no help. Dry, hard ground, no trees, nothing that might make a visit enjoyable. No drinking water; arid, depressing; i kept waiting for the undead to come over the horizon.
Pretty Lake, though.
TravelerOnly spent one night, but level sites, full hook ups, showers and laundry clean. An area to play games and we didn’t have our dogs this time but the dog zone looked good and clean.
GuideA lot of water stations. The boat dock parking area allowed camping along the perimeter. A few paved walking paths near the beach area. The narrow paved roads made life interesting. The fish cleaning station is closed due to vandalism. Our first day was 105F which made the lake more inviting. Evening low of 76F. No pets on the fairly small swim beach. All other water access has large rocks for erosion mitigation.
Our Saturday departure was delayed by FWP boat inspection at the entrance and a long line was inbound to Holter Lake.
Scout
We were passing through and needed a place to camp. We were surprised how well kept and beautiful the campground is! The host was amazing and works really hard to keep the sites in tip top shape. The lake is right against the sites and makes for a beautiful place to stay.
Scout
I called 30 minutes before our arrival for a tent camping spot and the host was easily able to accommodate us. Two men met us in a golf cart and drive us to our nice grassy site. The campground had coin showers with hot water and a family friendly rec room.
Guide
Great easy access spot! This area is free to use and is well maintained. Each site has a fire pit and a picnic bench. Also, each site has lots of space and decent privacy. Toilet, water, and food storage is provided. Lots of spots have creek access which is nice.
Guide
So the road is gravel and pretty far with private property signs on both sides til you get there. Directions take you there with no problem. Two bathroom locations and spots along the creek. No wildlife while we was there. A few other campers but all spaced apart well so it was secluded. It is 15$ and you have a QR code to scan to pay, however there is ZERO signal there to get online to pay so we paid once we left and got back into town for the night we stayed.
Ranger
Beautiful spot! Right by the river! We got the last spot down by the river and the pit toilet. $18 for non residents. Bring your own toilet paper, the toilet was not stocked very well. Fire pits and picnic table at each site. Just beautiful views! By far my favorite spot this trip!
Traveler
We stayed four days here and it was great! From Wednesday through Friday, we basically had the entire place to ourselves. Even in July, the mornings and evenings were cool and pleasant. The camp has three clean toilets stocked with toilet paper, and a pump water fountain with clean and cold water to enjoy. Overall pleasant but ATV campers showed up Saturday, driving around the camp, but they were polite after quiet hours. Short trail in the campground, and about five miles from entrance was the Continental Divide Trail. We didn’t know about that until we were leaving, so we will come back to explore. 20 spaces. Will accommodate RV off grid, but no generators after 10 pm, which is good. So quiet at night!!
Guide
Love the spot, not many people, picnic tables/fire pits at each pull through spot. Pit toilet was locked. The mosquitoes were absolutely blood thirsty and aggressive and after multiple reapplications of bug spray we had to call it quits. The fire barely kept them at bay, but we still got a few bites sitting next to the heat.
Traveler
Big rigs have a great space at the bottom of the hill... but if you're in a truck, van, etc., head on up the hill. The road is in great shape. There are some pullouts, but look for a road on the right (veer left at the private drive; you'll see a sign) and you'll find a great site with a fire ring and somewhat level ground. Chances are it'll be COVERED in cow poop, but hey. It's quiet, aside from the mooing of cows, and totally private. There's probably more up the road, too, I just didn't go further. Solitude.
Scout
Pulled in around 10 to find a couple 5th wheels in a circle and a few vans dispersed, only one sketchy motor home but quiet night. We stayed in the camper all night as the mosquitos were the worse I’ve ever seen at all hours.
Guide
We didn’t stay at this exact site as it was taken but there one more dispersed site about a mile or so down the road.
Was nice being close to the creek and there was lots of fallen trees we used for firewood.
Quiet spot with a small amount of traffic on the road.
Didn’t see any wildlife but the horseflies were a bit out of control this time of the year.
ScoutGreat sites by a stream,,,just beautiful.
Scout
Literally a five star outhouse.
Traveler
Campsite are separated a good distance, not very many. There might be hookups in the round end of the, not positive. Fire pits available. 2 Bathrooms available. Large picnic benches. Pretty sure first come first serve.
Traveler
This site is one of the best sites if you want a bit of privacy. As with the rest of the Georgetown Lake sites, there are a number of people, but you have many options to try and limit contact.
Guide
Quiet and almost empty Wednesday/Thursday but not only full weekend 100am wakeup call from a ski boat with a deafening sound system.[The other side of the lake]
The access to the lake was between other campsites but it was too steep for my wife. Site 61 was a tight squeeze at 33' because of an incline at the rear of 2'. Excellent sunsets and moonrises with plenty of room between the sites. No shade at sites but some trees/shrubs on the shoreline.
TravelerVery nice stop. Just a few others here on a weekend.
Guide
Easy 1 night stay on the river. Pretty quiet. Clean
Scout
The prior review is spot on. There is really no good place for a tent. You could park a camper along the parking area near the campsite. As stated prior, it is next to the outhouse, but which was clean and odor-free. You can use waders to fish by the boat landing. The site/boat landing was busy during the day but abandoned except for me in the evening. So, I liked the privacy. According to the interpretive sign, Lewis and Clark had breakfast here in 1805. Kinda cool! And I had breakfast here in 2024: but, I drove. Road noise quiets down when it gets dark but starts up by daybreak.
Scout
Couldn't camp as it was full on a Thursday in June. Couldn't find and was told there's no water. Very, very busy landing for fishing boats. The town alongside it (Craig) has a nice restaurant / bar and a brew pub.
Frequently Asked Questions
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