Best Cabin Camping near Glen, MT

If you like history, ghost towns and camping then Bannack State Park is for you. Bannack Montana was the 1st Territorial Capital of Montana. The Ghost town allows you a look at how settlers and miners leaved in the early day of Montana. See the 1st Territorial Governors Manson (ok, small cabin). Almost all of building you can enter. The best times to visit is when reenactments are happening at the park. The state park has two small campgrounds, Vigilante Campground with 15 sites and one Tipi site. One of the sites at the Vigilante site is only for bikers. Vigilante campsites can be reserved. The other campground is Road Agent Campground. Road Agent has 8 sites. Both sites have Vault Toilets, water and trash bins.

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

This is a great spot in a tiny town south of Butte Montana. They have a couple cabins, several motel rooms and about 10 full hookup, all grass, RV spots. Also a large area for car/tent camping. The grounds are meticulously maintained by the owner and it has nice views of the bluffs and mountains all around it. Walking distance to the restaurant and bar in town if that’s your thing. Quality hookups at each site, and each site has its own trash can. Clean bathrooms and laundry on site. Owners are very present and attentive on site and super friendly. Picnic tables at every site. One shared fire pit out front of the office. It’s in a very small town, with several fishing spots nearby. Very peaceful location. We would stay again.

A few things to be aware of:

• All sites are back in, but they are reasonably wide and very long.
• It is about a mile or two from the interstate which is convenient but you can occasionally hear a large truck pass by.
• There is a train track nearby, we heard about one train per day in the morning.
• We were here in July and there were some mosquitos. If you plan to be outside probably bring a citronella candle or bug spray.

Overall it was a great campsite. There are currently 17 camping spots with a cabin as well. The campsite is located right on the lake and it’s about a 15 mile commute on a gravel road to get there. If your plan is to stay at the campsite for the duration of your visit I would recommended it. But if you are going to explore the area you have to make the 30 mile round trip in order to get to the main road. It was also busy when we got there (Friday night) all 17 campsites were full. There are plenty of great campsites that aren’t 30 mile round trip on gravel roads. The actual sites itself were nice with picnic tables and fire pits.

The layout of this state park was somewhat unusual: there are five loops within one larger loop with 32 sites plus seven additional pull-through sites on the outside of the loop. There are also three handicap accessible cabins and one tipi. All are reservable. This campground appeared to be very family-friendly, with many kids riding bikes and playing on the playground (first campground I’ve seen in a while that had kids playing on it). There are some trees, but they don’t necessarily provide shade (certainly not for B4!) Flush toilets plus (fee) showers; it was nice that there was HOT water! The path leading from Loop B (where we were) to the bathroom went between one of the cabins and their driveway, making it feel like we were walking through their yard – a little bit awkward. There is one 6.5-mile trail from the campground but the real attraction is the cave tour (and no, Lewis and Clark never saw the caves)! The Classic tour is $12 and lasts approximately two hours and is very interesting. You cannot make advance reservations for the tour, but we had no problem walking up and buying tickets at 5:30 pm on a Friday. It is a 3/4 mile UPHILL walk to the cave entrance and a half-mile walk back to the visitor center when done with the tour. There was also a covered picnic pavilion and a day-use area, but it appeared to be closed when we were there.

This campground was a pleasant surprise. We had initially planned to camp at Glacier but were thwarted by fire and smoke. We booked this campground when we arrived at the State Park, no problem. The road circles the campground. There are five loops inside the outer road, with about 7 campsites per loop, and the playground and bathrooms in the center. The sites have electric hookups. We were able to fill our water tanks with spigots centrally located throughout the campground, but could not keep it connected. No sewer, but the bathroom is very convenient. The site was level with a fire pit and very spacious. The State Park was awesome. We went hiking and the cave tour was great. They have two souvenir stores and one cafe near the cave. We stayed there for 4 nights which was perfect for what we had planned. Would highly recommend.