Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Helena, MT

Clean. Had outhouses. Pet and family friendly drive to accessible. Tent and camper parking. Right on the water.

Very friendly. Campground store, campground hosts.

Lake access, boat access.

Pet friendly.

Picnic tables and gazebos throughout the park.

Clean bathrooms, outhouse and showers available.

Full electric, sewer hook up spots available.

 A 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.

Half an hour outside of Helena is a beautiful reservoir lake. Court Sheriff Campground spreads out along its shore. Many sites are waterside and you can see families playing in it. Bring your boat or inflatables and relax.

Our site is not on the water. As soon as we pulled in the camp host hurried over. He was super helpful and directed us to a shady spot. As time goes on, I’m finding the afternoon sun to directly hit our teardrop. There is still plenty of shade for us to relax in. Clean vault toilets are spread throughout camp. Water spigots give good water from the aquifer below. They provide waste bags for dogs! Garbage and recycling are by the entrance.

There aren’t hiking trails nearby but you can drive back to Helena to find some good trails out of city park.

Stayed one night while visiting a friend in Helena. Close to the Continental Divide trail, which we briefly hiked. Beautiful trail. Campsites had tables and plenty of shade. There was a highway near the campground, which unfortunately meant we had occasional noise at night.

This is the 3rd and final disperse site that the Helena National Forest has marked along the little Blackfoot River.  It is nice to be sure that you are on public land when in an area checker boarded with private land.  This is a large flat camping area with plenty of room for tents and several RV's.  Site has a large rock fire ring, and the river is only a few short flat feet away.  Plenty of wood can be found for making a fire.  Site is near the road, but very little traffic comes this way as you are almost at the roads end.  Water can be easily filtered from the river (more like a creek at this point)

This is a nice area especially if you want to be totally isolated because there is no cell phone service here. It is close enough to Helena that you are not too far from civilization should you want to pick up supplies or make a phone call. The road is a bit rough and the vehicles do not slow down so be careful pulling out onto the main road from the campground area. They were grading the road when I was there so it was a bit of a muddy mess but otherwise it was great. Not a lot of people camp here probably because of the lack of cell service so it is a nice quiet place. The bugs can get bad because the creek runs right along side of the road.

Indian Meadows Trailhead is the trailhead for two trails in to the Helena National Forest  Scapegoat Wilderness Area, plus it features a camping area with picnic tables and metal fire rings along with a vault toilet.  The camping loop has five developed sites with tables and fire rings.  The area serves as the trail head for two trails,  Mainline Trail #481 and Landers Fork Trail #438.  Each trail head has a small parking area, but a very large parking are is between the two to allow for additional parking and for horse trailer parking.  No water or trash service is available at the site, but can be obtained at the Copper Creek campground a few miles away.  Cost is FREE!

Bumped in to this disperse campsite while heading out for a hike.  This is one of three disperse campsite along the Little Blackfoot River in the Helena National Forest that have been marked by the Forest Service as a disperse camping area. This is a nice large flat right next to the creek with plenty of room for multiple tents or RVs.  The site has a large rock fire ring and the big bonus of having a picnic table.  A short trail leads to the river, but does require a little bit of scrambling.  The River (more of a creek at this point) has a nice spot if you need to cool off from the summer heat.  Another short trail goes up a small hill and leads to an area with lots of fallen trees which can be cut for firewood if fire restrictions are not in place.  The only bad thing about this disperse site is that it is right next to the road.

This is the second disperse camping sit along the Little Blackfoot River that has been marked as a disperse campsite by the Helena National Forest.  It is nice having these sits marked by the Forest Service as their are several parcels of private land along the road.  This site is small with only one small level area for a tent of mid sized RV.  The site has a large rock fire ring in the center.  Their is no easy trail access to the river.  Plenty of down trees in the area for firewood if you have a way to cut them, their is also plenty of small stuff that can be easily collected for a fire.   Site is right next to the road, but road noise should be little to none as a few curves will slow vehicles down and their isn't much more road left until the campground and trailhead at the end of the road.

Kaden Campground is a Helena National Forest Campground just about at the end of the road, the trail head for Blackfeet Meadows Trail is just a short distance past the campground.  Kaden Campground is across the road from the Kaden Cabin which can be reserved.  The campground has 11 sites, all quite roomy and nicely spread out.  Each Site has a picnic table and metal fire ring.  The campground has running water from two faucets.  Two Vault toilets serve the campground.   This is a Trash-in Trash-out campground.  Two feeding areas are available for horses, and A small public corral is located across the road from the campground.  The little Blackfoot River runs along the campground and is easy to access.  If you are in the need for a hike, take the short trail at the end of the campground to the Blackfoot Meadows Trail head.  A 5 mile hike (10 round trip) will take you to Blackfoot Meadows and some very good fly fishing.

Helena National Forest's Park Lake Campground sits next to the beautiful Park Lake. A day use areas sits along the east side of the lake. The campground sits above the lake and features 22 campsites with metal fire rings and picnic tables. The campground is paved with paved parking pads. The campground has two vault toilets(a third one sits at the entrance to the campground in the day use area). Water is available from two hand pumps in the campground. This is a very nice campground with the sites nicely spread out from each other. The kids will love all the large boulders to climb on. Unlike a lot of other forest service campground that are off the beaten path, you will still get cell service at Park Lake since you sit on a high spot in the area. The lake provides fishing for Arctic Greyling, and Cutthroat trout. The lake is open to non-motorized watercraft. Follow the speed limit on the way up to the campground as the road can be very bumpy.

There were some of the cutest cows on the way in. It took me over half an hour to locate the owner and get a calf's head unstuck. The water was pretty and my dogs loved all the beach wood. My neighbors were friendly and didn't mind the dogs running around.

My dogs and I went here for a day trip. It was super pretty, neighbors were friendly, though it was busy. Good spot for a bonfire.

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.