Spire Rock Campground

It was free!!! So there is 2 parts to this camp ground there’s a paid part or you can keep going and there’s free dispersed camping. We were right on the river! There was a fire ring. No other amenities. Bring your own firewood. No cell service. There was a little garbage from the people before but not terrible. It was pretty quiet and peaceful. Overall we enjoyed it and would definitely stay here again.

This is a nice little campground in the Gallatin National Forest, a few miles up a dirt road off of U.S. 191 and along the banks of the Gallatin River. We rolled the dice, hoping to score an available spot, and pulled in without reservations on a Saturday afternoon. The host was very gracious and had 2 sites available for only 1 night (they were reserved starting the following day) and 1 site that was available for 2 nights. So we got lucky but I'd definitely recommend reservations if possible. $16 per night and $6 per bundle of firewood. We stayed in site 17. Each site had a picnic table, fire ring, and bear box. Most seemed relatively level and were spaced far enough apart that everyone had some privacy. We saw plenty of vault toilets and the one nearest our site was very clean. Plenty of trash receptacles too. Most sites seemed to have water access, as did ours, but the "river" was more like a small creek at this point. Regardless, we waded into the shallow but fast moving river and it was cold but refreshing. There was very little traffic in the campground, however the forest service road runs just along the opposite side of the river and uphill a bit. It was pretty busy until about 9pm then it quieted down. When we pulled in the host told us that there has been some bear activity recently and they came around later in the evening and reminded everyone. We saw a small black bear, maybe 250 to 300 pounds, right near our site the following morning as we were packing up. He wasn't at all interested in us and stayed about 40 yards away, then meandered off into the woods. Verizon cell service was non-existent. All in all this was a perfect spot for us, close to Belgrade where we needed to be early the next morning. I'd definitely stay again.

We stayed here while attending the 3-day, Run the Rut trail races up at Big Sky at the end of August 2018. It was a 45-minute drive but we booked late and everything else was full. We really like this location, about 3 miles up Storm Castle Creek on a dirt road. It's a small, clean and quiet campground with sites not too close together. No road noise aside from a rare vehicle in the canyon and dust wasn't an issue. Two trailheads were along the dirt road. We explored Storm Castle, a short, very steep climb up but well worth the views. Very clean vault toilets and food lockers but nearest showers are in Bozeman. Bring buckets and warm stream water for washing... it's FREEZING cold! I tried washing my hair in the stream and it was painful. No showers available in Big Sky either. We stayed in site #10, close (but not too close) to the restroom. Nighttime temperatures were just above freezing and there had been rain the day before we got there so things were a little damp but no mud. The morning sun did shine down into the campground fairly early to warm things up.