Rice Ridge 02

Coming out here — Rice Ridge 02 · Lolo National Forest · MT

• Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Benedict 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 11.6% — noticeable. 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.
• From the 3D model Read this beside the hillside line above: that is the slope of the hillside; this is what the game computes for the ground under four wheels and the sky at this exact pin.

  Under four wheels: the lidar under a truck parked at the pin tilts about 9.3°, downhill toward the southwest. Facing north, that is nose up 8.2° and left side down 4.4°. The flattest truck-sized spot the model finds within 25 m (82 ft) of the pin is about 55 ft to the north (bearing 10°), where the same truck would sit nose up 0.6° and left side down 1.1°. Computed by Dispersed 3D on October 14, 2026 from USGS 3DEP 1 m lidar (MT_Statewide_Phase3_2021_B21 and MT_Statewide_Phase4_B22); bare ground, so a graded pad, a rock or a rut is not in it; nobody has stood on it for this.

  Sky over the pin: the aerial photograph shows about 10% tree canopy in the 13 m cell around the pin. The ground's own horizon from the pin stands highest at 10.3° toward the east-northeast (bearing 61°) and lowest at −3.9° toward the south-southwest (bearing 200°). Computed by Dispersed 3D on October 14, 2026: the canopy from USGS NAIP imagery, flown September 24, 2021; the horizon from USGS 3DEP elevation (cells of about 7 m), bare ground, trees not counted; nobody has stood on it for this. A dish wants open sky, and Starlink's own app checks obstructions on the spot. This is a reading of a photograph and a ground map, not a Starlink test.

  Fire history: Inside the 2017 Rice Ridge fire perimeter (160,002 acres), by the national fire history record. (NIFC InterAgency Fire Perimeter History, read October 15, 2026. This says where the record draws the line at this camp's recorded point, not what the ground here is like.)

• 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.
• 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.