Devil's Elbow Recreation Area

We camped here in late June for one day with a great view of the lake. The cost was $7.50 per night with our Lifetime Senior Pass. Each camp site had a fire ring and table, vault toilets, water, and trash receptacles were available throughout the campground. We received two-bars of Verizon service without a booster. The camp host was friendly and helpful. There was a paved path along the lake shore which made for a very relaxing stroll.

Devil’s Elbow Campground on Lake Hauser near Helena, Montana is administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Devil’s Elbow Campground offers affordable RV and tent camping. Campsites are both reservable and first-come, first served. In this video, I show you the best campsites and provide a tour of the campground, the recreation area, and amenities. AT&T cellular service clocked in at 29.4 Mbps download speed and 0.28 Mbps upload speed. T-Mobile cellular service clocked in at 23.0 Mbps download speed and 0.12 Mbps upload speed. There was no Verizon cellular service at this location.

We're traveling in a 45' Class A with a toad for a total of 67' with 2 small dogs. We had no trouble with access to this campground. The lake and surrounding area are beautiful and peaceful. There is a boat ramp and small marina here which we didn't have a need for. We visited the dam nearby and did some necessary shopping in Helena. There is a nice walking path at Clark's Bay Recreation Area (right nearby).

This BLM campground is perched on a bluff above the Missouri River / Hauser Lake, so the campground and many of the sites have excellent views across the water to the mountains beyond. The campground is a boater's paradise, with a boat ramp and fish cleaning station on site, and all of the sites are long and wide enough to fit boats / jet skis / other toys in addition to large camping rigs.

It appears that the campground recently experienced a major tree die-off, since there are a lot of stumps between the sites, and the newly planted replacement trees are pretty small, so there is not much vegetation between sites. However, the sites are large enough, with so much space in between, that we felt the privacy level was just fine. The area is very quiet at night, with the only noise issue being our neighbor who ran his generator all night long. During the day, and especially on summer weekends, there's a good amount of day use traffic and boats zooming around on the water. The biggest ding on the campground is that there is no meaningful hiking access from the campground or the immediate vicinity, just a few short walking paths down to the lake.

Loops A and C are reservable online at recreation.gov, but the entirety of Loop C can only be reserved as a group campsite. The best water views are in sites 5 through 8 in Loop A and a few of the waterfront sites in Loop B and C, and views are out the back of the sites. We saw several Class As pulled in forward to enjoy the views, which didn't seem to be an issue. There is a slight challenge with access to the campground -- the entrance is along York Road, at the bottom of a short but steep hill with little warning, so be prepared to take it slow in the area around the Two Camp Lookout in order to avoid overshooting the narrow campground entrance road.

Internet service at the campground is weirdly checkered. We had no service at the back of our site and 3 bars LTE towards the front. Still, we were able to make it work by adjusting the location of our MyFi. Speeds on AT&T: Download: 9.16 Mbps Upload: 1.22

It is about a 12 mile drive down York Road to get into the outskirts of Helena and reach Costco, Home Depot, Super 1 Foods, and plenty of gas and other supplies. Our favorite activities in the area were the Gates of the Mountain boat tour and a visit to Lewis & Clark Brewing.

This campground was very quiet on the Monday we were there, silent at night. Lovely overlook of the river from several sites. Sites are very widely spaced, gravel, with picnic tables and fire pits. Unfortunately they have lost a lot of trees in the past couple years, so there is not much shade. The pit toilets were pristine, but there were no campers in that part of the park. There is potable water and a hose to fill water tanks! A walking path goes over to the day use area. I understand that on Wednesday - Saturday, this is not such a peaceful place as it fills up with families, boaters, fisher people, jet skiers, etc... Some of the sites are reservable.

This is nice BLM dry-camping with freshwater on-site. The hosts were fantastic. The spacious sites and views of the water are awesome. It has a lot of boat traffic and some boat noise for sure. We had a lot of wakeboarding and skiing to watch. We enjoyed the paved paths for walking and bicycling around the area. With our Weboost we were able to get a lot of work done with the Verizon signal we had. Even without it, the signal was usable at times.

Dry camping, but there are RV friendly potable water spigots on site and a $10 dump station a few minutes down the road at a Lakeside General store. Pit toilets, no showers.

We showed up on a Monday afternoon, which was a great time to arrive. Summertime, this seems to be a really popular weekend spot for boaters. We noticed people dropping off travel trailers to secure spots starting on Wednesdays and by late Thursday it seemed every RV spot was taken (tent sites didn't seem to fill up as much). Rules are that you can't leave your property unattended for 24 hours so if you're a local and you stop by once a day to check on your stuff, I guess it's a good way to save a spot for the upcoming weekend (at the cost of $15/day). We chose space 1 in loop A. It overlooked the Missouri river and we only had neighbors to our left. Each spot comes with a metal picnic table and fire ring.

Camp hosts are very friendly and helpful. They let us know about the off-leash dog area recently created, which includes access to a "pet swim cove" which was really cool (our dog wanted nothing to do with the water, but if you have a water dog, they'll love it!) You can continue past the pet swim cove with your off-leash dog, on some trails. We did a 1.5 mile loop each morning and evening within the campground (leashed) on pavement.

It got hot here in late July, early August. There's a breeze though an you can run your generator during the day. You can swim right below the cliff at the "swim beach" which is more of a kiddie-swim area. It's all of 3 feet deep, but, it's close and refreshing. If you want to walk further, you'll have a bigger swim area at Clark's Bay, which connects via paved path to Devil's Elbow.

About a 25 minute drive up the road, past the town of York, you'll find the Trout Creek Canyon trailhead. It's a 6 mile out and back hike, but after the first 1.5 miles the terrain got steeper and rockier so we turned back, making it 3 miles in total. Nice hike for a cool day.

Overall we really liked our stay at Devil's Elbow Campground. Pretty mellow and quiet during the week. Weekend boaters seemed to play their music a lot louder than the mid-week crowd -- so be ready for that! Pit toilets were clean. And the most pleasant surprise was that there weren't really any bugs around! Groceries and services in Helena, about a 20 minute drive.

While the facilities are basic (no hookups) Devil's Elbow can't be beat for spacious sites (most with waterfront views), close location to town, helpful hosts and clean facilities. We were looking for a cheaper place to stay close to Helena for a few days to catch up on some errands. This place fit the bill and as we arrived on a Tuesday had a lot of sites to choose from and were lucky enough to get one on the waterfront - we were so close to the lake we could hear the fish jumping out of the water!
As this seems to be a popular place for the locals with boats to hang out on the weekend (there is a boat launch at the campsite) try to get here earlier in the week if possible to snag a good spot as you cannot reserve. There is no dump station, no power, no showers, there are drop toilets, and each site seems to have its own picnic table and fire ring. There are also a number of group sites I believe can be reserved. Cell phone coverage for AT&T was a bit patchy, but as you are so close to town we just drove in and set up in a cafe for a few hours when we needed the net. There is also a great path network along the lake and to the next cove which is good for dog walking or a run up the hill if you need a bit of exercise!