Agency-listedUSFSFree
Dinner Station Campground
Drive-up · U.S. Forest Service · MT · 45.42708, -112.90267
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →U.S. Forest Service lists this site. On most of their ground you can camp away from developed sites pretty much anywhere — so treat this as a known-good spot, not the only one allowed. The unit sets stay limits and how far off road and water you must be. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
Nearest road on the Forest Service MVUM — Dinner Station Campground · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT
No road within 1 mi of the pin in the national MVUM layer — and that layer carries no data at all for this forest (unit 0102), so this is the layer's silence, not the ground's. Access may be a county road or unmapped.
From the Forest Service's own Motor Vehicle Use Map roads layer (EDW, Clearinghouse refresh Aug 30, 2026), straight-line from the pin to the nearest mapped segment. The nearest segment is not necessarily the way in, a maintenance level is the agency's class and not a report on today, and a road's season is the road's — it is not a campground order. What the levels mean → What an MVUM is →
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Dinner Station Campground
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 7,139 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Dinner Station CampgroundNIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Dinner Station Campground · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- GGrocery10 mi
- WWater10 mi
- FFuel18 mi
- @Mail18 mi
- OOutfitter18 mi
- DDump19 mi
- MMechanic19 mi
- LLaundry19 mi
- +Urgent care42 mi
- EVEV fast charger42 mi
- RxPharmacy43 mi
- ShShower43 mi
- HHardware43 mi
- AAir-up43 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water's a short hop out, fuel & food sit about 10 mi out, the nearest EV fast charger is a 42-mi run (and back).
Not within 60 mi: Propane. Plan those before you head up.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Dinner Station Campground
Access
Drive-up
Land
U.S. Forest Service
Elevation
7,139 ft
Ground slope
15% · steep
Nearest rail line
~9.5 mi · main line
Nearest highway
~9.5 mi · Interstate 15
State
MT
Coordinates
45.42708, -112.90267
Cost
Free
Nearby & resupply — around Dinner Station Campground · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureBirch Creek · ~0.1 mi · USGS: perennial stream
- Nearest townMaverick Mountain · ~10.1 mi
- Nearest rail line~9.5 mi · main line
- Nearest highway~9.5 mi · Interstate 15
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelMelrose Bar and Station · ~17.5 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- Dump station~19.1 mi
- GroceriesMa Barnes country market · ~9.9 mi
EV charging — from Dinner Station Campground · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger42.4 mi straight-line N — Butte, MT - Grizzly Trail - Tesla Supercharger (at a rest stop) · Tesla · NACS (Tesla) · 8 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-06-18 · hours: 24 hours daily. NACS partner enabled. · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · 4 within 50 · 19 within 100 · 43 within 150
- Nearest listing CCS42.6 mi — Flying J Town Pump (Butte, MT), Butte
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO91.9 mi — L146 DC1, Helena
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)19.8 mi — UMW #1 STATION 1, Dillon, MT · ChargePoint Network · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 327427 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Dinner Station Campground · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletDinner Station Campground · at this camp · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletAspen Picnic Area · ~2.3 mi E · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletBirch Creek Cabin · ~2.5 mi E · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletCoolidge · ~7.9 mi NW · USFS
Coming out here — Dinner Station Campground · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Birch Creek as a perennial stream, ~0.1 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 15% — steep. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- Rail line mapped ~9.5 mi from the pin — the national rail atlas classes it as a main line. That is the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026), which records that a line is there and what class of track it is. Whether anything runs on it, how often, and at what hour, it does not say, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- Interstate 15 is mapped ~9.5 mi from the pin. Straight-line, from the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025) — the divided, limited-access highways, which is why a state expressway or a two-lane US route near this camp would not appear here.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Dinner Station Campground elsewhere
Other camps near Dinner Station Campground
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Lake Trail Head~0.2 mi
- Aspens Down~1.4 mi
- Boy Scout Flat Dispersed Site~2.9 mi
- Turnaround~3.9 mi
The unit that manages Dinner Station Campground
Stay limits, road closures and fire restrictions at Dinner Station Campground are set by Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, not by the campsite — check there before you go.
Snow, and when this opens
The nearest automatic snow station is Mule Creek at 8,300 ft, about 3 miles away. It sits about 1,161 ft higher than this camp, so treat it as a guide rather than a reading for this spot. We do not repeat a depth here, because any number we stored would be stale by the time you read it — the station publishes today's.
How we know this — Dinner Station Campground
Source
U.S. Forest Service recreation data
Confidence
Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.
How it was placed
Developed FEE campground (not free) - review | auto:usfs-fee 2026-08-20: US Forest Service developed campground, agency coordinates, agency states a fee. No dollar amount in the agency record -- expect a charge and confirm the current rate before you go. Not field-verified. | Fee 2026-08-23: the individual campsites are FREE. The Beaverhead-Deerlodge's own fee block for this camp reads 'The campsites are free and first come first served ($0)'; the only charge on the page is $50 per night for the group site. We had this pinned as a fee site because the agency GIS record carries a fee flag and the group-site amount; the forest page is newer and more specific, so `fee` has been set to 0 and this note kept for the group charge. Source: https://www.fs.usda.gov/r01/beaverhead-deerlodge/recreation/dinner-station-campground-and-picnic-area. || Water 2026-08-24 (nightshift fire 120): USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse Recreation Sites layer (apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services/EDW/EDW_RecInfraRecreationSites_02/MapServer/0), extract cached locally as data\_mt_water_edw.json, objectid 2363425, site "DINNER STATION CAMPGROUND" (recreation area "Dinner Station Campground"), WATER_AVAILABILITY = "Yes, drinking water is available from a hand pump". Matched to this camp on coordinates (0.0008 mi from the agency point). Agency record only -- not field-verified, and no natural water here is claimed to be potable.
Nearest MVUM road
US Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Map roads layer (EDW_MVUM_01, layer 1), Clearinghouse refresh Aug 30, 2026. Straight-line distance from the pin to the nearest mapped segment within 1 mi; surface type, maintenance level and open dates are the agency's own values for that segment, expanded from its codes and otherwise unedited. Nothing here says which road reaches the site.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Dinner Station Campground
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Dinner Station Campground
Winter vs summer roads →Water on public land →What “dispersed” means here →Dispersed camping tips →All field notes →