Agency-listedUSFS · dispersedFreeRoad season: open (MVUM)

Limestone Butte

Drive-up · U.S. Forest Service · SD · 43.16010, -103.16697

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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.

A quiet free dispersed camping spot on the Buffalo Gap National Grassland a few minutes east of Oelrichs, in the far southwest corner of South Dakota near the Nebraska line. The Forest Service describes it as "A scenic area for wildlife viewing, dispersed camping, hiking and rockhounding. Limestone Butte Reservoir is popular with hunters and gets many waterfowl visitors. No fishing available. Please recreate with respect and pack out all trash." Fees: "No fee required." NO POTABLE WATER -- the Forest Service states "Potable water is not available at this site." There is a reservoir, but reservoir water is not drinking water and we are not telling you it is. Bring your own. No picnic tables either. Horses are allowed. This is birdwatching and hunting country more than scenery-tourism country. Expect waterfowl on the reservoir and hunters in season. READ THE COORDINATE WARNING BELOW BEFORE YOU DRIVE HERE -- the pin is our best estimate from official data, not a Forest Service-published campsite location. Grassland-wide dispersed rules apply: 14 nonconsecutive days in any 30-day period, camp 100 feet back from water, vehicles no more than 300 feet off a road shown on the Motor Vehicle Use Map. Check fire restrictions before lighting anything. Fall River Ranger District, (605) 745-4107. We have not visited this site.

Nearest road on the Forest Service MVUM — Limestone Butte · Nebraska National Forest · SD

The nearest road on the Forest Service MVUM is FR 7026 (Limestone Butte), 0.2 mi from the pin. The MVUM lists it as native material surface and maintenance level 2 – high-clearance vehicles.

Road season: open (MVUM) The MVUM lists FR 7026 (Limestone Butte), 0.2 mi from the pin, open to passenger vehicles year-round.

MVUM record for FR 7026 (Limestone Butte): “01/01-12/31” Read against the calendar on 2026-09-22; with JavaScript your browser re-checks it against today.

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 Limestone Butte

Loading the latest forecast…

Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 3,301 ft.

Fire & smoke — around Limestone ButteNIFC · 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 Limestone Butte · Nebraska National Forest · SD

▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.

Nearest of each

@Mail4 mi
FFuel20 mi
GGrocery20 mi
WWater24 mi
RxPharmacy24 mi
HHardware24 mi
LLaundry24 mi
EVEV fast charger24 mi
MMechanic24 mi
ShShower25 mi
DDump32 mi
OOutfitter47 mi
+Urgent care53 mi

≤30 mi30–4545+water

The read: water is a real 24-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 20 mi out.

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 — Limestone Butte

Access

Drive-up

Land

U.S. Forest Service · dispersed

Elevation

3,301 ft

Nearest rail line

~2.9 mi · main line

State

Coordinates

43.16010, -103.16697

Cost

Free

Nearby & resupply — around Limestone Butte · Nebraska National Forest · SD (OpenStreetMap)

Water featureLimestone Butte Reservoir · under 0.1 mi · USGS: perennial lake or pond
Nearest townSmithwick · ~9.8 mi
Nearest rail line~2.9 mi · main line
Nearest highwayno interstate or US route within 10 mi
Drinking waternone within 10 mi
FuelSinclair · ~20.1 mi
Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
GroceriesCoffee Cup Travel Plaza · ~20.1 mi
PharmacyLynn's Dakotamart Pharmacy · ~24.0 mi
HardwareAce Hardware · ~24.1 mi

EV charging — from Limestone Butte · Nebraska National Forest · SD — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)

Nearest public DC fast charger24.1 mi straight-line S — NPPD EV STATION CHDRN BGBTS DCN, Chadron, NE · ChargePoint Network · CHAdeMO, CCS · 1 fast port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
Public DC fast stations within reach2 within 25 mi · 3 within 50 · 18 within 100 · 28 within 150
Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)47.1 mi — Custer, SD - Tesla Supercharger, Custer
Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)24.3 mi — CHADRON CHADRON 1 · ChargePoint Network · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
Also listed, not counted aboveNACS-only Level 2 — Hot Springs Hills Inn - Tesla Destination, Hot Springs, 23.9 mi · NACS (Tesla) · hours: 24 hours daily. Open to Teslas only. · AFDC lists it “Free”
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 311797 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center

Nearby restrooms — around Limestone Butte · Nebraska National Forest · SD — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)

Vault / pit toiletToadstool · ~29.7 mi SW · USFS

Coming out here — Limestone Butte · Nebraska National Forest · SD

Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Limestone Butte Reservoir as a perennial lake or pond, under 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.
Rail line mapped ~2.9 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.
No interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin in the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). That file holds the divided, limited-access highways only — a state expressway or a two-lane US route near this camp would not be in it.
Assume no services at all. Most dispersed camping in a national forest has none: no tap, no power, no dump, often no toilet. Everything you need, you bring.
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 Limestone Butte elsewhere

Google satellite →Gaia GPS →CalTopo →Back to the map →

The unit that manages Limestone Butte

Stay limits, road closures and fire restrictions at Limestone Butte are set by Nebraska National Forest, not by the campsite — check there before you go.

Nebraska National Forest →

How we know this — Limestone Butte

Source

public land records

Confidence

Camping not stated — The agency's page implies overnight use -- typically by posting a stay limit -- but never actually says camping is allowed. Worth a call to the field office before you commit to it.

How it was placed

SOURCE: USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r02/nebraska/recreation/limestone-butte -- downloaded raw this fire to data/_scratch_sd/fs_limestone-butte.html and read locally. Quotes verbatim: "A scenic area for wildlife viewing, dispersed camping, hiking and rockhounding."; "No fee required."; "Potable water is not available at this site."; "Picnic tables are not available at this site."; Directions: "Located 5 minutes east of Oelrichs on Highway 18." Page last updated March 19, 2025. *** COORDINATE IS AN ESTIMATE AND THAT IS THE WEAK POINT OF THIS ROW *** The Forest Service page publishes NO latitude/longitude for this site -- unlike Railroad Buttes and Baja -- and the site does not appear in the EDW recreation-site layer at all. The pin used, 43.1601017,-103.1669697, is the USGS GNIS point for LIMESTONE BUTTE RESERVOIR, Fall River County (feature class Reservoir), taken from the official USGS Domestic Names file https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/GeographicNames/DomesticNames/DomesticNames_SD_Text.zip downloaded this fire. The reservoir was chosen over the summit because the Forest Service's own description is built around the reservoir. For reference GNIS puts the SUMMIT 'Limestone Butte' at 43.1734726,-103.1849355, about 1.4 miles northwest -- so the true camping area could be anywhere in roughly a 1.5 mile spread. Corroboration that this is the right neighbourhood: Oelrichs sits at about 43.18,-103.23; the reservoir point is roughly 3.5 miles east-southeast of it, which agrees with the Forest Service's "5 minutes east of Oelrichs on Highway 18". Point-in-polygon against https://apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services/EDW/EDW_BasicOwnership_01/MapServer/0 puts BOTH the reservoir point and the summit point inside ownerclassification='USDA FOREST SERVICE', forestname='Nebraska National Forest', so the land status is not in doubt even though the exact spot is. Confidence 'med' for that reason. A reviewer with a Fall River Ranger District MVUM could tighten this pin considerably. Dedupe: nearest existing row in the database is more than 3 km away. Verified 2026-08-17 01:05:16. | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.

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 Limestone Butte

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.

Whether that MVUM road is the way in, and the last stretch beyond it
Whether the site itself closes on its own schedule — only the road's season is on record
How many rigs actually fit
Cell coverage by carrier
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 — Limestone Butte

Water on public land →What “dispersed” means here →Reading a forest MVUM →How to read this page →All field notes →

Is this page wrong about Limestone Butte?

This page was built from a public land record, not from a visit. If you have actually pulled in here and it does not match, that is worth more than anything we can read off a map. Tell Dave what is off — it goes to him, not onto the page.

Anything else, in your own words (optional)Your email — optional, and only so Dave can ask you a follow-up. It does not go on a list, and nobody is promising you a reply.

A reader report is not a fact, and this one will not change a word of this page by itself. Dave reads it and checks it against the agency’s own record, because that record is what this site says. If reader reports are ever shown here they are labelled “reader report, unverified” with the date, and they are never merged into the agency fields.