Bitterroot National Forest Dispersed Camping Rules

16 days stay limit

Regional Order R1-2025-01 (signed July 17, 2025; effective August 1, 2025 through July 31, 2030) prohibits "camping or otherwise occupying a single site for over 16 consecutive days within a calendar year" and "camping or otherwise occupying any number of sites over 32 cumulative days within a calendar year" on all Montana national forests in the Northern Region, including the Bitterroot. A "site" is "the campsite or place that is occupied and all NFS lands within 1/2 mile radius." Forest recreation pages state "Camping is limited to 16 consecutive days" and that "camping equipment cannot be left unattended for more than 24 hours." In the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, occupying a single location longer than 16 consecutive days is prohibited and a minimum of 7 days must pass before reoccupying it.

Where you can camp

Allowed unless posted

The forest publishes no single dispersed-camping policy sentence; its recreation-site pages present dispersed camping as generally available - e.g. "If Schumaker Campground is full, there are opportunities for dispersed camping along Lost Horse Road" - subject to the Regional stay-limit order, the forest food storage order, and wilderness-specific restrictions. source

Keep your distance

Recommended: 200 ft — Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness guidance: "Camp out of sight and sound of other campers, and where possible, at least 200 feet from rivers, streams, and trails." Wilderness-area guidance ("where possible"), not a forest-wide order; no forest-wide water setback is published. source
Recommended: 200 ft — Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness guidance: camp "where possible, at least 200 feet from rivers, streams, and trails." Wilderness-area guidance, not a forest-wide order. source

Roads and vehicle access

Check the motor vehicle use map

"Travel only on off-highway vehicle designated routes. Cross-country travel is prohibited" and "always stay on designated Forest roads and trails" (forest OHV page). Motor Vehicle Use Maps "highlight the routes on the Forest where motor vehicles are allowed to travel"; the forest posts per-district MVUMs (Stevensville, Darby, Sula, West Fork). No official page states an off-route distance allowance for driving to dispersed campsites - check the district MVUM legend.

Fires right now

We don't watch this forest's fire orders yet — check its own site before you light anything. Here's what stage 1 and stage 2 mean when an order is up.

Closures and special orders

Order R1-2025-01 - Northern Region occupancy and use order (camping stay limits; pallet and target-refuse prohibitions) The stay-limit legal text: 16 consecutive days at a single site and 32 cumulative days per calendar year on Montana forests. Also prohibits possessing pallets or hardware-bearing wood as firewood and shooting at refuse targets. Effective August 1, 2025 through July 31, 2030.
Bitterroot National Forest Food Storage Order - Order 25-BRF-01 Forest-wide bear-safety food storage order; campers must store food and attractants as the order specifies. Read it before overnight stays.
Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness camping restrictions In the wilderness: single-location stays over 16 consecutive days prohibited with 7 days out before reoccupying; groups over 20 people/20 head of stock prohibited; campfires prohibited within 1/4 mile of Gem and Middle Lakes; camp at least 200 feet from rivers, streams and trails where possible.

How to read these rules

Dispersed camping means camping outside a developed campground — no fee, no table, no toilet, no water. You pick an already-used spot, pack out everything you brought, and the rules above are the whole deal you're agreeing to. The stay limit counts the way the card says it counts, not the way it counts on the forest next door: some places count per spot, some across the whole forest, some inside a radius, and moving a short distance often doesn't restart the clock.

Distance rules come in two shapes. Keep-away rules ("at least 100 feet from water") protect the thing you're camping near; stay-close rules ("within 300 feet of the road") keep vehicles on ground that can take them. A line marked recommended on the card is the office's guidance, not an order — the rest are enforceable rules, and a posted sign at the site beats everything on this page.

The motor vehicle use map is the legal answer to "can I drive in there to camp" — if a road isn't on it, that road is closed to your vehicle, and many forests only allow roadside camping along the roads the map marks for it. It's a free PDF; download it before you lose signal.

Fires are a separate rule with a separate clock. Nothing on this page says you can light one — the card's fire line says where that answer lives today. If a fire is allowed when you get there, buy your wood near camp — hauling firewood from home is how tree-killing pests reach new forests, and the BTU chart says what that local bundle is actually worth.