CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
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U.S. Forest Service · Clearwater National Forest · ID

Cedars Campground

4Heads up4 fires, nearest 10 mi
Wildfire
Moose Mountain fire · 9.5 mi away · 5,832 acres · 90% contained · updated Oct 7, 2026
Wildfire
Nugget Hill fire · 33 mi away · 35 acres · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Cedar Knob fire · 49 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Doney Lane fire · 50 mi away · updated Oct 15, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 15, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
Season
Year-roundOpen year-round
Drawn from the record · 3,650 ft · 31% tree cover · North Fork Clearwater River within reach · Bortle 2 sky
3,650 ftElevation
155 ftWater · North Fork Clearwater River
38.5 miSW of Frenchtown, MT
31%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 165th darkest of 523 in ID
Open year-roundToday

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Cedars campground has five developed campsites situated alongside the North Fork of the Clearwater River and Long Creek. A loop of the Idaho Centennial Trail passes by the campground, and other hiking/horse riding trails are nearby. Anglers will also love this spot as trout are abundant.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
River, Creek
Hiking
Horseback riding
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · Aug 23, 2026
Official page: Cedars Campground →

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. 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.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate46.87259, -115.07685
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

This Afternoon66°Mostly Sunny
Tonight43°Partly Cloudy
Saturday61°Mostly Sunny2% rain
Saturday Night37°Partly Cloudy2% rain

NWS forecast for Riverbend, MT

Source: National Weather Service, MSO forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 34°F, day 61°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 22°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

100°32°10°

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.

Measured at: SUPERIOR, MT (USW00024159), 24 miles away and 940 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

developing
Roadless
Rawhide5,832 acres · 6 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Meadow Creek - Upper North Fork46,452 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Moose Mountain21,018 acres · 10 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 4, 2026

Who answers for this land

Russ Fulcher, official portrait

Cedars Campground 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now.
Season: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.018 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 523 rated federal campgrounds in Idaho · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Riverbend, MT, 21.1 mi SSW (a census designated place). Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026