Blackfoot-Clearwater Wildlife Management Area, Seeley Lake, Montana

Backroad Destination:  Seeley Lake, Montana.

This is the Blackfoot-Clearwater Wildlife Management Area just outside of Seeley Lake, Montana.  I spent 14 days boondocking in a tent during late August of 2007.  A beautiful spot just south of Seeley Lake, Montana and about 40 miles east of Missoula.   The wildlife management area is 43,761 acres of wildlife land that opens for camping and public use on May 15th of each year.

There is a fee for boondocking on this site.  Toilets are provided, but no drinking water.  If you have a Montana fishing license there is a reduction in the camping fee.  There also might be a 7 day camping limit, but it did not apply in my case.

Boondocking in a tent!!  Well, it was not to difficult, but these old bones are starting to look for all the soft places to fall.  Fortunately, these fine folks cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday for the entire 14 days.  But as you can see from the size of the rigs you can easily get a large RV into these sites.


The Blackfoot-Clearwater site was the base camp for the Jocko Lakes Fire in 2007.  The fire almost burned into the town of Seeley Lake.  We were the third fire team to take over managment of the fire.  For our team  it was four or five days of intense firefighting and then mop-up.

Here is a photo of the campground with its row of temporary office buildings.  I always preferred my offices to be yurts!

 When fires start heading into the five and six digits of acres burned a small city shows up to support the firefighters and handle the mangement of the fire.

But I am going back to this fire camp.  It is minutes from Seeley Lake and the Swan River Valley.  The Swan River Valley is one of the prettiest places in Montana and not well known outside the state.

In the other direction, 40 minutes away is the town of Missoula complete with all the city services you might need, but without the problems!  No sales taxes in Montana.  Missoula has been a favorite city of mine since I first went there in 1972.  It is larger, but that famous Montana attitude is still there.  I always thought that someday I would end up living in Montana, but it did not turn out that way.  However, Montana is special as our its residents.  See this Montana story Kindness of Locals.... 

Here are some pictures of the camping areas.

For a slightly different perspective on camping in this area follow this link....Hitch Itch.  Click about halfway down to get this area discussion.  It appears that they were actually camped in this wildlife mangement area which is close by to the area we are discussing...Aunt Molly Wildlilfe Management Area    So pick one or the other.  You can't go wrong.

We are running out of time and space for this blog posting.  There is so much to do and explore is this area that I will let you find more information on your own.

Almost forgot.  Here are the GPS and Google Earth co-ordinates:  47 01 14.10 N 113 23 07.31 W

Montana.  It is the last best place.