Agency-listedUSFSFree
Lady Smith
Drive-up · U.S. Forest Service · MT · 46.25175, -112.40403
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 — Lady Smith · 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 →
What the record says about the site — Lady Smith · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT
- Tent camping
- No trailers or RVs
From the OpenStreetMap contributors listing for this site — their words, not our visit. Records go stale; treat it as a starting point and confirm anything your trip depends on.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Lady Smith
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 5,771 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Lady SmithNIFC · 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 Lady Smith · 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
- @Mail7 mi
- WWater9 mi
- GGrocery14 mi
- FFuel14 mi
- OOutfitter18 mi
- +Urgent care18 mi
- MMechanic18 mi
- HHardware18 mi
- LLaundry18 mi
- ShShower19 mi
- EVEV fast charger19 mi
- AAir-up19 mi
- RxPharmacy19 mi
- DDump20 mi
- PPropane45 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water's a short hop out, fuel & food sit about 14 mi out.
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 — Lady Smith
Access
Drive-up
Land
U.S. Forest Service
Elevation
5,771 ft
Ground slope
11.1% · noticeable
Nearest highway
~2.9 mi · Interstate 15
State
MT
Coordinates
46.25175, -112.40403
Cost
Free · dispersed public land, no fee in any source
Nearby & resupply — around Lady Smith · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureLadysmith Creek · ~0.1 mi · USGS: intermittent stream
- Also mapped (OSM)Boulder River (river) · mapped within 1.6 mi
- Nearest townBasin · ~6.8 mi
- Nearest rail linenone mapped within 10 mi
- Nearest highway~2.9 mi · Interstate 15
- Drinking waterDrinking water · ~9.1 mi
- FuelTown Pump · ~13.7 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- GroceriesL & P Grocery · ~13.6 mi
- PharmacyCVS Pharmacy · ~26.8 mi
- Hospital / clinicSt. James Hospital · ~17.9 mi
- HardwareAce Hardware · ~19.0 mi
EV charging — from Lady Smith · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger18.9 mi straight-line NW — Sinclair - Tesla Supercharger, Deer Lodge, MT (at a gas station) · Tesla · NACS (Tesla) · 8 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-14 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reach4 within 25 mi · 8 within 50 · 25 within 100 · 36 within 150
- Nearest listing CCS19.4 mi — Flying J Town Pump (Butte, MT), Butte
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO30.7 mi — L146 DC1, Helena
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)19.0 mi — JD Self Service Storage, Deer Lodge, MT (at an office building) · AMPUP · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2023-12-13 · hours: Contact site for information
- Pricing at the fast charger$0.56 per kWh (as listed by AFDC)
- 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 466520 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Lady Smith · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletWhitehouse Campground · ~3.6 mi W · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletSheepshead · ~7.2 mi SW · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletFreedom Point · ~7.7 mi SW · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletLowland Campground · ~9.3 mi SW · USFS
Coming out here — Lady Smith · Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest · MT
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Ladysmith Creek as an intermittent stream, ~0.1 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as intermittent — expect it dry for part of the year. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 11.1% — noticeable. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (10 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.
- The game's day in this forest These lines are for the whole Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, not for this camp's own spot: a fire restriction is posted by county, and a forecast is for one point in the forest. A camp's own night can differ from that point, most in the mountains. Read when this page loads from the same daily files the game uses; every line says where it came from and when it was read.
- This camp's own spot: sun and fire record Worked out for this camp's recorded point from federal records, not for the whole forest. Every line says where it came from and when.
Sun behind the west ridge: (USGS 3DEP elevation, bare ground, 30-meter steps, finer close to camp; trees not counted; worked out October 15, 2026 for the 15th of each month, in this forest's clock; nobody has stood on it for this.)
- No rail line is mapped within 10 mi of the pin in the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) — abandoned, lifted and out-of-service track excluded, so a rail-trail does not count as one.
- Interstate 15 is mapped ~2.9 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 Lady Smith elsewhere
Other camps near Lady Smith
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- USFS dispersed camp — MT #589~1.2 mi
- USFS dispersed camp — MT #353~1.7 mi
- USFS dispersed camp — MT #481~1.8 mi
- Mormon Gulch Campground~2.0 mi
The unit that manages Lady Smith
Stay limits, road closures and fire restrictions at Lady Smith 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 Rocker Peak at 7,960 ft, about 10 miles away. It sits about 2,189 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 — Lady Smith
Source
OpenStreetMap contributors
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
auto: drive (road/trail right there)
Site details
The OpenStreetMap contributors listing's own fields for this site (site type, whether tents or trailers fit, capacity, toilet, water, campfires, reservations). Printed as the record states them, unchecked by us, and never used to make a cost claim -- the cost verdict above is decided separately and audited before every deploy.
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 Lady Smith
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 — Lady Smith
Finding water out here →What “dispersed” means here →Reading a forest MVUM →Reading your camp page →All field notes →