Big Creek
1Heads up1 fire 47 mi away
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 54 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Located next to the Big Creek airstrip this four unit campground offers a good staging place to access the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. It is popular with pilots camping overnight in Big Creek. The campground is near the Big Creek Work Station. The four walk-in campsites are near a small stream, which flows into Big Creek. This location is available on a first-come, first-served basis only. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site. Once on-site, you may be able to pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app, and the Scan and Pay feature. If this option is available, you will need to first download the free Recreation.gov mobile app ht tps://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as some remote areas have limited or no cellular service. Keep reading
Recreation
Trailhead access to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness to the north on FR 371. Fishing in Big Creek.
Facilities
Facilities include an accessible toilet and drinking water. Pack in/pack out. No hook-ups.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 5
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- “Facilities include an accessible toilet and drinking water.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…include an accessible toilet and drinking water. Pack in/pack out. No hook-ups.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:29 UTC
recreation.gov lists 4 of the 5 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $10 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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:29 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
5 sites · the site map
All 5 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. 5 of the 5 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.
| Big Creek | 1 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Big Creek | 2 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Big Creek | 3 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Big Creek | 4 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Scan and Pay | Standard | type not stated | 172 ft | $10 |
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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Shiefer CampgroundPayette National Forest · 13 miYellow Pine CampgroundBoise National Forest · 15 miGolden Gate CampgroundBoise National Forest · 16 mi
Johnson Creek Guard StationBoise National Forest · 16 miChamberlain Basin Camping AreaPayette National Forest · 18 miIce Hole CampgroundBoise National Forest · 19 miFrom Yellow Pine, go 18 miles northeast on Forest Road 412, FR 340, and FR 371.
Eighty-six miles northeast of McCall on Big Creek Road (#371).
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Yellow Pine, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 30°F, day 59°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 12°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Big Creek is in Idaho’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Russ Fulcher (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →