Mapped · not agency-listedPublic land · dispersedFree
Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping
Drive-up · public land · MT · 48.83203, -114.34077
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 →A mapped lead, not an agency listing. Somebody marked this as a campsite; we could not match it to a land-manager record. Worth checking rather than counting on. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
What the record says about the site — Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping · public land · MT
- No toilet
- No drinking water — carry your own
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 Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 3,643 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Sonderson Meadow Dispersed CampingNIFC · 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 Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping · public land · MT
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- @Mail22 mi
- FFuel22 mi
- GGrocery22 mi
- DDump25 mi
- WWater27 mi
- ShShower27 mi
- LLaundry28 mi
- OOutfitter28 mi
- +Urgent care29 mi
- HHardware29 mi
- MMechanic30 mi
- EVEV fast charger31 mi
- RxPharmacy32 mi
- PPropane58 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 27-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 22 mi out, the nearest EV fast charger is a 31-mi run (and back).
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 — Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping
Access
Drive-up
Land
public land · dispersed
Elevation
3,643 ft
Ground slope
0.7% · flat
State
MT
Coordinates
48.83203, -114.34077
Cost
Free · OpenStreetMap fee tag: no
Nearby & resupply — around Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping · public land · MT (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureNorth Fork Flathead River · ~0.2 mi · USGS: perennial river
- Also mapped (OSM)Moose Creek (river) · mapped within 1.6 mi
- Nearest townFord · ~3.5 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelOlney Gas Pumps · ~22.4 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- Dump station~25.4 mi
- GroceriesOlney Store · ~22.4 mi
- Hospital / clinicKahler Chiropractic Health Center · ~29.1 mi
- HardwareACE Nelson's Hardware · ~29.2 mi
EV charging — from Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping · public land · MT — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger31.3 mi straight-line S — TOWN PUMP WF#2 STA 1, Whitefish, MT · 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 reachnone within 25 mi · 8 within 50 · 9 within 100 · 29 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)40.8 mi — Kalispell, MT - Tesla Supercharger, Kalispell
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)28.4 mi — West Glacier · Blink Network · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Also listed, not counted aboveLevel 2, restricted access — Apgar Visitor Center Charger, West Glacier, 26.7 mi · J1772 · hours: 24 hours daily with park pass; maximum 2 hours per session · 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 204514 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping · public land · MT — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletSchnaus Cabin · ~0.7 mi NW · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletFord River Access · ~3.3 mi NW · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletPolebridge River Access · ~4.3 mi SE · USFS
- RestroomWLD North Fork Polebridge Bldg 1842 Vault Toilet · ~4.4 mi SE · NPS
Coming out here — Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping · public land · MT
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps North Fork Flathead River as a perennial river, ~0.2 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 0.7% — 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.
- 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.
- Practice a first night on real ground in Dispersed 3D, free in the browser. The game's ground is Montana's Lolo, Custer Gallatin and Beaverhead-Deerlodge forests and the Arizona desert at Quartzsite; this camp is not in 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 Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping elsewhere
Other camps near Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Red Meadow Lake Campground~11.5 mi
- Flathead National Forest~13.3 mi
- Moose Lake Campground~14.2 mi
- Pnt03 Tr74 Site 3~16.8 mi
Who holds the land at Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping
USGS’s Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1, queried 2026-09-23) lists the ground at this pin as Flathead National Forest, manager on record: Forest Service (federal). That names who holds the land — it is not a statement that camping is permitted here.
How we know this — Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping
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.
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
Contributed, not agency-listed. A mapper marked this as a campsite. We have not matched it to a land-manager record, so it stays at Likely.
What we don’t know about Sonderson Meadow Dispersed Camping
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