Bench Creek Campground
1Heads up1 fire 47 mi away
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $5From, per site
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
A nice small campground in the trees along Bench Creek near Highway 21. Fishing in the stream and nearby Bull Trout Lake. Trail adjacent to the campground, heading southeast to Stanley Lake. Each of the 5 sites have picnic tables and fire rings with cooking grills. Amenities within the campground include a vault toilet. No drinking water is provided on site, and this small campground accommodates smaller trailers and motorhomes up to 30 feet long.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…within the campground include a vault toilet. No drinking water is provided on site, and this…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…the campground include a vault toilet. No drinking water is provided on site, and this small campground…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $5 with nothing added. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
Every line of the receipt · 5
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($5), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
How we know this receipt · 5
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Bull Trout Lake Campground & Group sitesBoise National Forest · 1.4 mi
Bull TroutBoise National Forest · 1.8 miBanner Creek CampgroundAnadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · 2.6 miThatcher CampgroundAnadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · 5.6 miLola Creek CampgroundAnadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · 6.7 mi
Cape Horn Winter RentalAnadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · 6.9 miThe 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 October night 24°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 4°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 more
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
Bench Creek Campground 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 →