Buck Park Cabin
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 41 mi
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 14 of the next 16 nights read 16:25 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Buck Park Cabin is located on Cuddy Mountain, in the Payette National Forest of central Idaho. Guests enjoy the remote area for its hunting opportunities and abundance of hiking, biking, horseback riding and off-road vehicle trails. The cabin sits at an elevation of 7,280 feet within Buck Park, a scenic meadow surrounded by a dense conifer forest. Rush Lake, Hornet and Lower Hornet reservoirs are nearby. This very rustic cabin can accommodate a maximum of three people. Metal cots are provided, but guests must bring their own sleeping bags. A wood stove is provided for heat and cooking. No plumbing or electricity is available. A vault toilet is located outside. Guests must bring water, food, bedding and firewood. High clearance vehicles are recommended for accessing Buck Park Cabin. Further, access to Buck Park Cabin will be challenging if snow has fallen (more likely after mid-October). Keep reading
Recreation
The cabin sits near small Rush Lake, which offers fishing opportunities. Hornet and Lower Hornet lakes are a short distance away. Hikers, mountain bikers, horseback riders and off-road enthusiasts will find several motorized and non-motorized trails in the surrounding area.
Facilities
This very rustic cabin can accommodate a maximum of three people. Metal cots are provided, but guests must bring their own sleeping bags. A wood stove is provided for heat and cooking. No plumbing or electricity is available. A vault toilet is located outside. Guests must bring water, food, bedding and firewood. Horse corrals and hitching racks are available within the cabin complex.
Natural Features
The cabin sits at an elevation of 7,280 feet within Buck Park, a scenic meadow surrounded by a dense conifer forest. Rush Lake, Hornet and Lower Hornet reservoirs are nearby. The Payette National Forest encompasses some of Idaho's most beautiful and diverse country. Located in west-central Idaho, north of Boise, the 2.3-million-acre forest extends 100 miles west to east, from Hells Canyon to the Middle Fork Salmon River, and 70 miles north to south, from the Salmon River to the Weiser River.
What the agency tells you
Water is not available at the facility; guests will need to bring their own
No electricity or hookups at this cabin
Hay brought in for horses must be certified weed-free
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack it in, pack it out' facility
Access to the cabin is via 15 miles on a rough four-wheel drive road; high-clearance vehicles are strongly recommended and trailers are not advised
Click here for more information on the Payette National Forest
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…plumbing or electricity is available. A vault toilet is located outside. Guests must bring water, food,…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…toilet is located outside. Guests must bring water, food, bedding and firewood. High clearance…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Meadow
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
Full this Saturdayread 16:25 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Tue, Oct 20. read 16:25 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 · 12
What you actually pay
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 16:25 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 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. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| BUCK PARK CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 468 ft | $50 |
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
BrownleePayette National Forest · 4.9 mi
LaffertyPayette National Forest · 12 mi
Spring Creek CampgroundPayette National Forest · 18 mi
Lake Fork CampgroundHells Canyon National Recreation Area · 18 mi
Cold Springs Campground - Payette NF (ID)Payette National Forest · 19 mi
Evergreen CampgroundPayette National Forest · 19 miFrom Council, drive 12 miles northwest on the paved Council-Cuprum Road 002, then 12 miles southwest on the gravel Buck Park Road 055 (high-clearance vehicles are necessary for passage). Continue 0.2 miles south on Buck Park Spur. Expect large rocks and a narrow, one-way road. Buck Park is a 1.5-hour drive from Council, Idaho.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cambridge, ID
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
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
Buck Park Cabin 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 →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyRuss FulcherU.S. Representative · Idaho’s 1st district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJames E. RischU.S. Senator · Idaho
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMike CrapoU.S. Senator · Idaho
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Buck Park Cabin, Payette National Forest, Idaho
Dear Russ Fulcher, I’m a constituent in Idaho’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Buck Park Cabin, Payette National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Buck Park Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Buck Park Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Buck Park Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Buck Park Cabin (Payette National Forest, Idaho) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Buck Park Cabin, Payette National Forest, Idaho
Dear James E. Risch, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Buck Park Cabin, Payette National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Buck Park Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Buck Park Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Buck Park Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Buck Park Cabin (Payette National Forest, Idaho) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Buck Park Cabin, Payette National Forest, Idaho
Dear Mike Crapo, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Buck Park Cabin, Payette National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Buck Park Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Buck Park Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Buck Park Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Buck Park Cabin (Payette National Forest, Idaho) via campanac.com