Best Tent Camping near Twin Bridges, MT

This is a nice smaller forest service campground adjacent to grasshopper creek. A great spot to stay if exploring the Pioneer Mountains.

There are 7-8 spaces, most suitable for a trailer or van. We were tent camping as were others. There are vault toilets and the ubiquitous forest service green potable water pumps/drinking fountains.

There are no dumpsters so have to pack trash out. There are campground hosts but they don’t have firewood for sale, so either need to bring or be prepared to do quite a bit of hunting for wood. The area around the campground is picked pretty clean of good firewood.

This is bear country and there are food storage boxes located throughout the campground for shared use. I expect the presence of bears is also why they don’t have any dumpsters on site.

The campground sits at approximately 7000 feet and by late summer gets near freezing temps overnight. Bring your fall/winter sleeping bag if tent camping here in late August or late Spring!

Just a few minutes up the road from the campground is Elkhorn Hot Springs where you can pay a few bucks to use the rustic pool and hot springs.

Salmon Fly Fishing Access Site is a beautiful small campground along the Big Hole River. The site has six campsites all nice spread apart from each other, and a decent size day use area. Sites have gravel parking pads, metal fire rings and picnic tables, along with nice grass areas to set up a tent. The fishing access site is with in walking distance to the small town of Melrose. The site has one vault toilet. No water or trash service is available. The site has a concrete boat launch, but be warned that Montana FWP has posted that the water is shallow for larger boats. The campground is nice and quiet, far enough from the Interstate to not really hear the road traffic, there also is a lightly used rail line near by, but did not notice any train noise while at the site. Cost to camp is$12 with a valid MT fishing license,$18 with out, if you are over the age of 62 then those rates drop to$6 or$9 a night.

Great park and campground popular with locals for a quick getaway, and ideal for travelers between Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.  Yes, it is on a bench above a river valley and below higher sage and juniper covered foothills.  It can be windy, and it can be hot and sunny in the summer.  Locals find it a great early and late season destination for these reasons.  The trails also dry out/stay dry early and late making it a hiking and mountain biking destination when the higher mountains are snowy or muddy.

The campground itself has great facilities, and manicured lawns (good since this is rattlesnake country), but little to no natural shade.  Clean restrooms and clean vault toilets.  Small visitor center at the highway entrance and second visitor center for the cave entrance at the top of the mountain (foothill).  Summer brings intermittent ranger programs. I reserved a star for wind and lack of shade, otherwise it’s great camping.

P.S. spotty cell coverage!

Galena Gulch Campground is a free nicely maintained BLM campground just off of interstate 15 south of Boulder Montana. This campground has 10 sites all with metal fire rings and picnic tables. Two ADA accessible vault toilets serve the campground. This is a trash-in trash-out campground. Be sure to bring your own water as there is no water at this campground. Most sites sit along the Boulder River. Camping is limited to 14 days. This is a busy campground despite it not being listed on the BLM's website and their being no indication from the interstate that the campground is present. The main drawbacks of this campground is the noise from I-15 and how busy the campground is. The sites are nicely spread out giving you plenty of room. The entire campground has nice grass covering and is well maintained making finding a good spot for your tent an easy choir.

I I initially found this on free campsites. Com. Though the official website is listed as BLM, BLM actually doesn't have Galena Gulch on their site. However, this is a clean and mowed campsite that is largely grassy field next to the boulder River. The mountainous and forested Recreation area surrounded it though.

There is plenty of space for RVs, though there are no hookups of any kind. There is no water and no electricity and no cell phone service. I have Verizon. I took a star away because there wasn't any water but added it back because it was free!

There were probably a dozen official sites that had fire rings and a parking spur. While there were a couple sizable rigs there, if your RV is so big that you must have a pull through, you will probably find this Campground challenging.

There was a large grassy area and another smaller grassy area that were simply open with no fire ring or parking spur. However, it was very easy to park on the grass and several people could pitch tents there if they wanted. I did this.

There are two side-by-side pit toilets and an information board in the center. They were clean and stocked. Once again, I want to emphasize that there is no water here. The boulder river is directly adjacent but locals in Montana don't consider any water safe.

There were multiple people there with their dogs and a great number of sites filled with RVs. At the time I was there there were only two of us tenting.

Your GPS will get you here, nearly. Take the exit it tells you and follow the directions. However, my GPS told me that I had arrived and I was looking at the boulder River on the right and houses on the left and no Campground. What you have to do is go up the road another hundred feet and follow the sign to turn right to Galena Recreation Area. This takes you on an underpass under the freeway and immediately becomes a gravel road that goes over a one-lane bridge. You can't make any wrong turn here. As soon as you cross the bridge you will see the campground immediately on your right. From the time you make the right hand turn to the campground it is probably a couple hundred feet.From getting off the freeway to the campsite is probably less than a mile

I was there for 3 night and it was full every night. However, the turnover seems high as it appears most people use it as an overnight on their travels, especially since there are not any services there. But it's a pretty area. Some people bring their ATV and use the dirt road that runs through the recreation Area to drive around. You can use that road to hike to , also the radon health mine is right up the road.

Bring water and food as you would have to drive 20 minutes back to Boulder to get services. Boulder's a cute small town with a few restaurants, a grocery store, gas stations and a very wonderful Hot Springs Resort.

The BLM's East Bank campground is a small campground on the Big Hole river that has seen better days. Most of the trees in the campground have been removed due to beetle kill so sites are more in the open. The sites are well spread out and a few still have large trees. Each site has a gravel parking pad, picnic table and metal fire ring. The boat launch area is still nice with large trees along the river, a few picnic tables with fire rings are in this area which look like they could be used as a camping site but are small in size. The boat ramp is dirt, but the area has a large parking area. The recreation area and campground has vault toilets(handicapped accessible), but no water or trash service so come prepared. Their is no fee for this site.

Brownes Island Fishing Access Site is located 6 miles south of Melrose on the Big Hole River. This nice little Fishing Access/Campground has five campsite sitting under large cottonwood trees. The campsite all have dirt parking pads, metal fire rings, picnic tables with a decent amount of room for tents. The campsites are nicely spread apart from each other. The camping area has one ADA accessible vault toilet. The FAS has a dirt boat ramp just down stream from Brownes Bridge. No water or trash service at this campground, but the price to camp can't be beat, the site is free. While this site is near the Interstate and a railroad the campground was still fairly quiet thanks to all the large cottonwood trees.

Harrison Lake FAS campground is a large spacious campground with most campsite being well spread out from each other.  The fishing access site has several vault toilets, which is nice for how large of an area the campground occupies.  Each campsite has a picnic table and a metal fire ring.  Plenty of flat ground at each site for your tent. No water or trash service is available.   The site has a concrete boat ramp as well as several other locations one could put a boat in the water.  The lake is really hurting for water this year, I would say that about only 25% of the lake volume was left on my visit, so this lake and all of Montana could really do with some rain.   The big down point for this campground is that everything is in the open, the site has no trees so you are at the mercy of the sun and wind.

Ennis fishing access site is located on the Madison River just on the south edge of town. This is a First come, First serve campground that is walking distance to the town of Ennis. Some sites sit along the river, some spots are more private toward the back of the campground. It appears not much effort was placed in making this site a campground, sites are unlevel and parking pads vary from gravel, to dirt or grass. This is a dry campground like most FAS sites. A small vault toilet serves the area, site are numbered and have a picnic table and appear to all have rock fire rings. Fishing must be good here as this site always appears full when I drive by. Several spots appeared to have nice grassy areas for tents. If you have a large RV you might want to park at a parking area at the entrance and walk in to make sure there is a place big enough for you as the layout of the campground might get a bit tight for a larger RV. The fishing access site is closed to camping from December 1st through April 31st every year.