Agency-listedUSFSFeeOpen todayRoad season: open (MVUM)
Parkside
Drive-up · U.S. Forest Service · MT · 45.06063, -109.40388
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 as a developed campground. Expect marked sites, a fee station or a reservation, and the usual campground rules. The dispersed-camping freedom of the surrounding forest does not apply inside it. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
Can I go now? — Parkside · Custer Gallatin National Forest · MT
Open today Year-round per the agency record.
U.S. Forest Service record: “Open year-round. Fees charged Memorial Day – Labor Day.” Read against the calendar on 2026-09-22; with JavaScript your browser re-checks it against today.
Nearest road on the Forest Service MVUM — Parkside · Custer Gallatin National Forest · MT
The nearest road on the Forest Service MVUM is FR 2421A (Upper Parkside Campground), 0 ft from the pin. The MVUM lists it as bituminous surface treatment surface and maintenance level 4 – moderate degree of user comfort.
Road season: open (MVUM) The MVUM lists FR 2421A (Upper Parkside Campground), 0 ft from the pin, open to passenger vehicles year-round.
MVUM record for FR 2421A (Upper Parkside Campground): “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 Parkside
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 7,127 ft.
Fire & smoke — around ParksideNIFC · 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 Parkside · Custer Gallatin National Forest · MT
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- WWater9 mi
- FFuel11 mi
- GGrocery11 mi
- @Mail12 mi
- HHardware12 mi
- OOutfitter12 mi
- MMechanic12 mi
- +Urgent care32 mi
- DDump39 mi
- RxPharmacy41 mi
- EVEV fast charger41 mi
- ShShower41 mi
- LLaundry52 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water's a short hop out, fuel & food sit about 11 mi out, the nearest EV fast charger is a 41-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 — Parkside
Access
Drive-up
Land
U.S. Forest Service
Elevation
7,127 ft
Ground slope
0.8% · flat
State
MT
Coordinates
45.06063, -109.40388
Cost
Fee
Nearby & resupply — around Parkside · Custer Gallatin National Forest · MT (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureRock Creek · under 0.1 mi · USGS: perennial stream
- Nearest townRed Lodge · ~11.8 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
- Drinking waterWater · ~9.1 mi
- FuelFuel · ~10.9 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- GroceriesCircle 17 · ~10.9 mi
- HardwareRed Lodge True Value · ~11.6 mi
EV charging — from Parkside · Custer Gallatin National Forest · MT — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger40.7 mi straight-line SE — DENNY MENHOLT CHEVROLET BUICK GMC, CODY, WY · EV Connect · CCS · 1 fast port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · 1 within 50 · 19 within 100 · 32 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)52.2 mi — Laurel, MT - Tesla Supercharger, Laurel
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO60.4 mi — Denny Menholt Nissan, Billings
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)40.4 mi — Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY (at a museum) · Non-Networked · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2023-03-08 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Also listed, not counted aboveNACS-only Level 2 — City of Red Lodge - Tesla Destination, Red Lodge, 11.7 mi · NACS (Tesla) · hours: 24 hours daily. Open to Teslas only. · AFDC lists it “Free”
Level 2, restricted access — Super 8 by Wyndham - Cooke City, Cooke City, 25.9 mi · J1772 · hours: 24 hours daily; for guest use only; see front desk for access · 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 330020 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Parkside · Custer Gallatin National Forest · MT — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- RestroomParkside · at this camp · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletParkside Picnic · at this camp · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletLimber Pine · ~0.4 mi W · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletGreenough Lake · ~0.5 mi SW · USFS
Coming out here — Parkside · Custer Gallatin National Forest · MT
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Rock Creek as a perennial stream, 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.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 0.8% — flat. 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.
- No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
- 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 Parkside elsewhere
Other camps near Parkside
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- USFS dispersed camp — MT #17~0.2 mi
- USFS dispersed camp — MT #748~0.3 mi
- Limber Pine~0.4 mi · fee
- Greenough Lake~0.5 mi · fee
The unit that manages Parkside
Stay limits, road closures and fire restrictions at Parkside are set by Custer Gallatin National Forest, not by the campsite — check there before you go.
Snow, and when this opens
The nearest automatic snow station is Cole Creek at 7,910 ft, about 10 miles away. It sits about 783 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 — Parkside
Open season
Open year-round. Fees charged Memorial Day – Labor Day.
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: $20 per night for a single site, which includes one driving vehicle; each additional vehicle is $10, and Interagency Senior and Access holders pay half. recreation.gov publishes the same $20 for the 2026 season (May 22 - Sep 10). The group sites are a mess on the agency's own page: its fee table and one prose line both say $80 per night for 1-35 people and $100 for 36-50, while a second prose block on the same page says $65 for 1-35, $85 for 36-50 and $65 for site B. Budget the higher $80/$100 and ask -- the camp is run under concessionaire permit by Recreation Resource Management of America. Outside the fee season the forest says the campground is ungated and free with no services. Source: https://www.fs.usda.gov/r01/custergallatin/recreation/parkside-campground-and-group-campsites and https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/232773. WATER (fire 1740, batch 3, tier B): https://www.fs.usda.gov/r01/custergallatin/recreation/parkside-campground-and-group-campsites "Parkside Campground and Group Campsites" -- "Facility and Amenity Information > Water": "Potable water is available at this site." (page last updated July 24, 2026; our pin is 0.001 mi from the coordinates that page prints, name match: subset). USFS EDW RecInfra carries no WATER_AVAILABILITY for this site, so it could not corroborate. Single-channel. Written because the affirmative is the direction this page field is reliable in: across all 358 Montana forest pages read this fire, "Potable water is available at this site." agreed with EDW 105/114 times (92%) overall and 29/32 in custergallatin. The known failure mode -- an unfilled field printing the negative -- cannot manufacture an affirmative. The page's "Seasons of Use" line reads "Open year-round. Fees charged Memorial Day – Labor Day." -- that is the season of the SITE, not of the tap, so it is not folded into the value.
Season
Read from the agency's own season / closure text in this record (data/conditions.py) and checked against the calendar. The words we read are printed under the verdict at the top of the page.
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 Parkside
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
- 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 — Parkside
Winter vs summer roads →What “dispersed” means here →Reading a forest MVUM →Leave no trace →All field notes →