Battle Ridge Campground

Battle Ridge and Blackmore campgrounds in the Custer Gallatin National Forest will begin charging overnight fees on Aug. 1, 2022.

The new fee for the Battle Ridge Campground in the Bridger Mountain Range is $10 per day, offering 12 campsites. The Blackmore Campsite, near the outlet of Hyalite Lake, provides 10 campsites and will charge $16 per day.

We made it past the treacherous deep pits in a fork off the left loop other reviewers warned about with a 4x4 truck and lifted Casita. Site was great with super views and solid hammock trees. A short walk to a pit toilet that was 4 stars as far as pit toilets go. The camp is cross from Battle Ridge multi use trail. The friendly camp host warned of fire danger and a black bear that was poking around. Later that night we saw the bear coming up the site trail. It ran off after some clapping, but just make sure you store your food right!

Great spot. Arrived after dark, so didn't get a good look at the campsite. Roads were fine for our all-wheel drive car. I imagine it's busy during the summer months, but we were one of only two campsites occupied during our stay. Quiet and gorgeous spot for a sleep. Amazing stars, surrounded by trees and mountains when you wake up. Would definitely stay here again!

Arrival/Site Conditions: We stayed arrived on a Wednesday late afternoon. There were two sites left, both had a steep angle. We had to raise the front of our 25 ft. travel trailer 13". We were able to park our Tundra at the front of the site. It had rained for about three days before our arrival and so our RV slipped each time we tried to level it (sides). We used wheel chocks and crossed our fingers. They held and so we breathed a sigh of relief. Our scissor jacks were extended almost all the way to level it out after we raised what we could with the hitch. They held for 9 days. The ground dried out and everything was good! Sites 2 and 4 are the least level.

Sites: There are roughly 11 sites depending on how one counts them out. The first one was taken by the campground host. Who later told us that before they came, the campers were rough, partying a lot and being disrespectful to others and the property. There are a few deep ruts leading to the entrance of the campground, which is on the right. Otherwise, the road is in gravel. Our Vista Cruiser handled the ruts fine, just remember to take it slow. If one chooses to go left and veer away from the formal campground, there are spaces people have taken amongst themselves to create a site. This is frowned upon per the Campground Host's comments. They mentioned blocking off access; however, campers break through them anyway. Again, choosing to go left, there are a 3 to 4 places one could park their RV or tent; however, the ruts were quite deep and extremely muddy.

Water/Toilets: Even though the Forest Service listing says they have water, it was turned off due to being contaminated by herds via a nearby creek. The campground was free when we arrived; however, research is being done to potentially turn it into a more improved campground raising the cost of $0 to $10 a night. There were photographers taking pictures of the campground to access its feasibility of being improved during our stay. There are vault toilets, they are clean. A few were locked.

Hiking: There are plenty of trail heads in the immediate area. One of which is right across the road from the campground. Most of the trails are multi-use and are often used by dirt bikes. We had to move to the side a few times. If you're heading up to Fairy Lake, the trail head is roughly seven miles from the main road. It is extremely bumping; you're likely to bounce all over the place like I did. From the trail head, the lake is about 2.5 miles up.

Cell coverage: we did not have much in the way of coverage at the Campground (Verizon, GoogleFi). With Verizon, sometimes I got a bar. Up the road from the campground at the Bridger Bowl (skiing lodge), we had full bars. We parked just off the main road (MT-86) in a gravel lot. Otherwise, we used our WeBoost for coverage. Verizon had a decent cell signal with the WeBoost, GoogleFi did not.

When we arrived we noticed that the Official Battle Ridge Campground was still closed to the Public as of 5/29/2020 and 5/31/2020. We ended up going to the left loop and camping in the Forest service area on the top. The site overall was fine but the wind was hell all weekend. When it wasn't windy it was amazing but good luck with that as it seemed to gust 20 mph winds every 20 min or so. We will be back, but in a different area that is less windy. Getting there was easy from Bozeman. The road at the campsite has been rutted into a mud pit so be cautious with vehicles and being equipped with 4x4.

This is a great natural campground. By that I mean a dirt road coming in, dirt and not too level campsites ( except for a few level ones on the right side), no electricity or water. Hopefully water will return soon. We had no problem leveling our 26’ camper with blocks. Lots of trees and wild flowers. ❤️ That campsites don’t sit right on top of each other and there are only 12! First come, first served. We had no problem though coming in on a Weds.

A very friendly and helpful camp host stopped by and we chatted for quite awhile. In fact, while I was there all the campers were really friendly. I enjoyed watching the children have fun and petting the dogs that were being walked. My husband and I had a relaxing time at Battle Ridge which is a beautiful 30 min drive from Bozeman.

Vault toilets were clean which is a big plus! There is one open at each end of campgrounds. The camp host invited us for coffee and a bonfire. It was nice meeting his family and getting to know them. We will camp here again.

This campground is so beautiful! It was peaceful and quiet despite being kind of near the road. The sites were all well kept, and all the spots on the right side of the road were big enough for our 30ft tt and truck and were mostly level. In spot 11 we did end up having to use some leveling blocks but the rest of the spots seemed level. Each spot has a picnic table and nice fire ring. The camp host was so nice and does a great job maintaining the sites. We saw a few deer and a bunch of cows.
There are some vault toilets, I didn’t use them so I’m not sure what condition they are in but I did see quite a few other campers using them so they cant be that bad.
As of our stay in late August 2019 there was still no available water.
From here it was about a 20/25 minute drive down to Bozeman
The only thing that wasn’t perfect about this place was right at the turn in onto the dirt road there were a few potholes but we got across them fine.
We had not ATT service on our cell phones but our Verizon hotspot read 1 bar 4G LTE and was able to stream shows and allow us to use our phones normally so that was good enough for us!

Some of the other reviews on here mention the dispersed camping area across the road but I would absolutely not try to tow anything up there, I wouldn’t have even considered driving our 4wd truck up there by itself. We did however walk our dogs up there and the views were beautiful!