Cottonwood Campground

This is the only campground on Canyon Ferry Lake not owned by the Bureau of Reclamation. It's owned by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, and is part of the greater Canyon Ferry Wildlife Management Area (WMA).

The campground is located half-way up an unnamed dirt road. The road is easy to drive on, there are some potholes and light mud, but otherwise doable by any vehicle. There are four campsites. Two of them are on a grassy area under full sun. One is a pull through site under complete shade. The other is an ADA compliant campsite on concrete pad. The sites have fire rings, picnic tables, and there is a pit toilet on site.

The campground is meant to serve boaters and fishermen who come here frequently to launch their boats. The boat ramp lies further up the unnamed dirt road. There are no campsites further up the road.

The unnamed road into this area branches off of Highway 287 and has a "fairly" steep drop down. Pulling a trailer, or driving a motorhome down from this is probably pretty easy enough, but pulling it up and back onto the highway could be more tricky. It's hard packed gravel, and traffic along the highway moves pretty fast. You might spin your tires trying to get out of there, but considering so many other campers do it, I'm sure anyone you can do it too.

There is no mention of a camping limit. One assumes 14-days? I do note that the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks exercises a 7-day limit at many of their other campgrounds.

This is otherwise a very quiet place to camp, and is completely surrounded by tall trees. The sites are somewhat close together, and there's isn't much margin for creating more privacy. Verizon 4G comes in good at 4 bars.

After striking out on a forest camp road near Yellowstone to camp yesterday we were headed west to Idaho the next day. . But with the sun out I really wanted to find spot and not drive for 5 plus hours on a beautiful sunny day. So after searching on Campendium I found a cool little spot an 1 hr north off the 90 So I found this little gem. We we're the only ones in the little camping area. There's no real spot with markings for sites so we got lucky and back up next to the river. The birds are chirping , the fish are jumping allll over and you here the train in the background. Doesn't get any better then this. We would stay for a couple of nights but a rain storm is moving in tonight so onward we go to Idaho.

Secluded spot not too far off the highway. Occasional train noise, a little bit of highway noise when everything is very quiet. Trains don't bother us but I put 3 stars for noise for those whom such noise is bothersome.

Good T-mobile service (5 bars, LTE).

Cottonwood and Russian Olive trees. Was a pleasant place to stay overnight. Probably wouldn't stay longer unless fishing or doing something else in the area.

We spent 4 nights on our way from Whitefish to Yellowstone. We needed to stop in Helena MT and this was a good option. Verizon data was pretty good. It a decent camping area but there were several "long term" campers there. All were very friendly. This hiking was not as good as I would have liked but thats OK.

The road going in was OK for us but leaving after a good rain I needed to use 4 wheel drive to get on the paved road as I had to stop and wait for traffic. Got mud on RV ;-)

Townsend is a good little town for diesel and propane only about 1 mile away.

Couldn’t ask for more when you just need easy. Level, graveled spot just off the highway and hidden in the tall grasses. I find the sounds of trains pleasant, especially when mixed with a chorus of frogs. We’ll remember for the next time we are crossing this long beautiful state.

The turn off was a bit hidden despite the signs, accidentally missed it and when I came back around, there is a sign stating the campground is closed for resource protection. There is no turn around beyond that first enterance loop. Id give it a couple months and come back and see if it's still closed.