Alturas Lake Inlet
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 17 mi
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $24–$48Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 2827 on recreation.gov
- Season
- June 1 – September 30Open June 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Alturas Lake Inlet Campground is located on the shores of scenic Alturas Lake at the foot of the Sawtooth Mountain Range. Keep reading
Recreation
This site is part of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, where outdoor activities abound. Alturas Lake offers excellent boating, water skiing, canoeing, kayaking and fishing for bull trout and Kokanee salmon. The 10-mile round trip Alpine Meadows Trail begins nearby, with spectacular canyon, meadow and alpine lake views. The trail is also a popular area for bird watching.
Facilities
This campground contains several family campsites, some of which have lake or creek views. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking spurs are gravel. A day-use site is adjacent to the campground with a designated swim beach. Smokey Bear Boat Ramp is less than 1/4-mile away.
Natural Features
Alturas Creek runs through the campground, where summer wildflowers are plentiful and a mixed-growth conifer forest provides partial shade. Temperatures are cool, with an average summer high of 78 degrees and a low of 40 degrees.
Nearby Attractions
The Sawtooth National Recreation Area offers a myriad of excellent hiking and biking opportunities, and an estimated 750 miles of trails crisscross the valley and surrounding mountains. Perkins Lake is less than 2 miles away, with excellent fishing and canoeing. Pettit and Yellowbelly Lakes are nearby, with more fishing, canoeing and hiking. The Salmon River offers fishing for rainbow trout, Westslope cutthroat trout and occasional hybrid cutbows and bull trout. Popular area events include an Arts and Crafts Fair in July, and Wagon Days, Salmon Festival, Quilt Fair and Fireman's Ball in September.
What the agency tells you
Standard Single Family sites: Recreation Use Fee allows ONE camping unit ONLY. Double sites: refer to Specific Site # for capacity limits.
Extra Vehicles: Fee is half the Standard Single Family rate and CANNOT BE PAID FOR IN ADVANCE - upon arrival coordinate with the host for payment and where to park.
There are no electricity, water or sewer hookups at this campground.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Late Arrivals: campers are not considered a "no-show" until 24 hours after arrival date check in time. Our policy is that your site will not be released before that.
FIRST COME FIRST SERVE sites must be booked in person. DO NOT call to determine availability, as they are only available on-site.
Beach access not included in site fees AND no pets are allowed at beach area. NO JET SKIING permitted on the lake.
Idaho Off-road Vehicle Safety Message
Don't Move Firewood: Help prevent the spread of tree-killing pests in our national forests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Click here for more info about the Sawtooth National Forest
Opening and closing dates are weather permitting, please call 928-537-8888 for more information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 28
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…some of which have lake or creek views. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…lake or creek views. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking spurs are gravel. A…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Beach, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Water sports
- Night sky · 179th darkest of 523 in ID
- Bortle 2
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 27 of the 28 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $24–$48 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
28 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 27 mapped sitesAll 28 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 28 of the 28 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 02 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 126 ft | 794 ftAlturas Lake | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 03 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 100 ft | 781 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 04 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 100 ft | 819 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 05 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 109 ft | 738 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 06 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 109 ft | 637 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 07 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 108 ft | 600 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 08 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 108 ft | 527 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 09 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 113 ft | 415 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 10 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 131 ft | 490 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 11 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 135 ft | 432 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 12 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 151 ft | 298 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 13 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 161 ft | 255 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 14 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 136 ft | 176 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 15 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 136 ft | 209 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 16 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 111 ft | 176 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 17 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 92 ft | 283 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 18 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 93 ft | 310 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 19 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 92 ft | 356 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 20 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 102 ft | 379 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 21 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 93 ft | 389 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 22 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 139 ft | 427 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 23 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 124 ft | 477 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 24 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 112 ft | 525 ftAlturas Lake | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 25 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 112 ft | 520 ft | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 26 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 121 ft | 581 ftAlturas Lake | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 27 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 85 ft | 627 ftAlturas Lake | $24–$48 |
| ALTURAS LAKE INLET | 28 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 85 ft | 705 ftAlturas Lake | $24–$48 |
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 01 | type not stated | 40 ft | 382 ftAlturas Lake | $24 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
25 of 28 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Chemeketan CampgroundSawtooth National Recreation Area · 7.3 miBear Creek Transfer CampSawtooth National Forest · 12 miFrom Highway 75, turn onto Forest Road 205/Alturas Lake Road. Travel approximately 3 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Stanley, ID
Typical weather
Typical June night 35°F, day 69°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical September night 31°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Alturas Lake Inlet is in Idaho’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Mike Simpson (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →