Calamity
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $20From, per site
- Sites
- 4140 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Calamity Campground is located along the Snake River drainage at the north end of beautiful Palisades Reservoir at an elevation of 5,700 feet, just 55 miles east of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Visitors enjoy boating, water skiing, fishing and canoeing. Keep reading
Recreation
Palisades Reservoir offers excellent boating, water skiing, swimming and canoeing. Lake and shore fishing are very popular here as well, with wild and stocked cutthroat trout as the predominate species. Kokanee salmon, brown and Mackinaw trout can also be found. A boat ramp and large parking area are located on-site. The Palisades Creek Trail begins nearby, leading hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders to beautiful Upper Palisades Lake and expansive views of Swan Valley.
Facilities
The campground offers several campsites on three loops. All sites are equipped with a picnic table and campfire ring with grill. Some sites have a few stairs from the parking spur to the site pad. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided, but there is no electricity. Firewood is available for purchase from the host. Roads and parking spurs are gravel.
Natural Features
The campground is situated on a hillside above Palisades Reservoir, affording scenic views from many sites. A mixed forest of lodgepole pine, spruce, fir, aspen and maple trees partially shade the campground. Summer wildflowers dot the landscape. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (541) 351-1182.
Nearby Attractions
Big Elk Creek Trail, for hiking, biking and horseback riding, begins at nearby Big Elk Campground and meanders up a beautiful canyon brimming with wildflowers, towering trees and views of the surrounding mountains. Swan Valley and the Snake River offer more great fishing and boating opportunities, as well as rafting, canoeing and numerous trails for hiking, biking, horseback and ATV riding. Fall Creek Falls is 20 miles away, and the Fall Creek area has hundreds of miles of such trails.
What the agency tells you
Wildlife Caution
Idaho OHV Safety Message
No trailers allowed in Loop C
Everything else this campground posts · 5
A $8 fee for extra vehicles will be collected at the campground per day
ATVs/OHVs can be used only to enter and exit the campground
Click here for more information on the Caribou-Targhee 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.
Check-in Time is 2:00pm and Check-out time is 12:00pm
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 41
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…from the parking spur to the site pad. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided,…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…spur to the site pad. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided, but there is no…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Firewood
- Sold here
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Water sports
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 373rd darkest of 523 in ID
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 32 km away
- Peak color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 40 of the 41 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
“A $8 fee for extra vehicles will be collected at the campground per day” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $20 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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
41 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 40 mapped sitesAll 41 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. 41 of the 41 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.
| A | A-01 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 107 ft | 274 ft | $20 |
| A | A-02 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 89 ft | 317 ft | $20 |
| A | A-03 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 97 ft | 399 ft | $20 |
| A | A-04 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 89 ft | 406 ft | $20 |
| A | A-05 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 102 ft | 398 ft | $20 |
| A | A-06 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 102 ft | 482 ft | $20 |
| A | A-07 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 76 ft | 368 ft | $20 |
| A | A-08 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 76 ft | 345 ft | $20 |
| A | A-09 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 111 ft | 454 ft | $20 |
| A | A-10 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 105 ft | 322 ft | $20 |
| A | A-11 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 142 ft | 154 ft | $20 |
| A | A-12 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 105 ft | 288 ft | $20 |
| A | A-13 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 147 ft | 186 ft | $20 |
| A | A-14 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 76 ft | 212 ft | $20 |
| A | A-15 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 76 ft | 284 ft | $20 |
| A | A-16 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 106 ft | 198 ft | $20 |
| A | A-17 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 82 ft | 283 ft | $20 |
| B | B-02 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 88 ft | 485 ft | $20 |
| B | B-03 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 82 ft | 600 ft | $20 |
| B | B-04 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 82 ft | 582 ft | $20 |
| B | B-05 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 88 ft | 482 ft | $20 |
| B | B-06 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 74 ft | 570 ft | $20 |
| B | B-07 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 141 ft | 571 ft | $20 |
| B | B-08 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 104 ft | 604 ft | $20 |
| B | B-09 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 81 ft | 604 ft | $20 |
| B | B-10 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 81 ft | 685 ft | $20 |
| B | B-11 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 74 ft | 640 ft | $20 |
| B | B-12 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 59 ft | 738 ft | $20 |
| B | B-13 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 86 ft | 669 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-01 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 59 ft | 782 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-02 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 75 ft | 860 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-03 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 58 ft | 901 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-04 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 58 ft | 906 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-05 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 106 ft | 791 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-06 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 95 ft | 837 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-07 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 77 ft | 932 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-08 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 102 ft | 1,005 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-09 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 106 ft | 1,110 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-10 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 77 ft | 1,007 ft | $20 |
| CALA | C-11 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 217 ft | 1,107 ft | $20 |
| CALAMITY | 00 | type not stated | 50 ft | $20 |
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 41 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Riverside Park CampgroundTarghee National Forest · 1.0 mi
Palisades Creek CampgroundTarghee National Forest · 4.8 mi
BIG ELKTarghee National Forest · 5.0 miBlowout Campground7.5 mi
Falls CampgroundCaribou National Forest · 10 mi
Jensen CabinCaribou National Forest · 10 miFrom Idaho Falls, Idaho, travel on Hwy. 26 for approximately 50 miles. Turn right off of Hwy. 26, (just before ascending grade to top of dam) and go ¼ mile, turn right and cross the river following signs to the campground. Distance is approximately 5 miles.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Irwin, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 29°F, day 59°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 11°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
Calamity 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 →