Cold Springs Campground - Payette NF (ID)
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 25 mi
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $10–$15Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 3432 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Cold Springs Campground is located near Lost Valley Reservoir, just 10 miles from New Meadows, Idaho. Visitors enjoy boating, fishing and swimming. 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 https://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as some remote areas have limited or no cellular service. Keep reading
Recreation
Lost Valley Reservoir is just 3/4-mile from the campground, offering boating, canoeing and fishing opportunities. On the north end of the reservoir is the Lost Creek Interpretive Site, an excellent location for bird watching.
Facilities
The campground offers two group sites that can accommodate up to 75 and 50 guests each. Several additional single and double-family sites are available as well. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking spurs are gravel. The campground has no hookups or trash receptacles. Please pack out your trash. A boat ramp is located on the southeast shore of Lost Valley Reservoir, while Slaughter Gulch Day Use Site can be found on the west shore.
Natural Features
The campground is set in an open meadow lined with ponderosa pines and fir trees at an elevation of 5,000 feet. A few sites are shaded, but most are not. Summer wildflowers are abundant.
Nearby Attractions
Lost Valley Reservoir is less then a mile from the campground.
What the agency tells you
Idaho Off-road vehicle Safety Message
No electric, water or sewer site hookups available
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack it in, pack it out' facility
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Sites may be available on a first come, first served basis outside the reservation season
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
- 34 · 2 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 24 ft
- Accessible sites
- 4
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Pit Toilets
- ACCESSIBLE PIT TOILETS on 11 of 34 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…are available as well. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking spurs are gravel.…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Creek, Meadow
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 241st darkest of 523 in ID
- Bortle 2
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 32 of the 34 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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $10–$15 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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
34 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 32 mapped sites2 sites share one published coordinate and are left out of the rankings.
All 34 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. 34 of the 34 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 001 | standard nonelectric | 138 ft | 449 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 002 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 715 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 003 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 658 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 004 | standard nonelectric | 62 ft | 699 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 005 | standard nonelectric | yes | 62 ft | 655 ft | $10–$15 | |
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 006 | standard nonelectric | 766 ft | $10–$15 | |||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 007 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 712 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 008 | standard nonelectric | 765 ft | $10–$15 | |||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 009 | standard nonelectric | 52 ft | 725 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 011 | standard nonelectric | 61 ft | 725 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 012 | standard nonelectric | 162 ft | 500 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 013 | standard nonelectric | 162 ft | 729 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 014 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 528 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 015 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 576 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 016 | standard nonelectric | 88 ft | 481 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 017 | standard nonelectric | 63 ft | 553 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 018 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 479 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 019 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 542 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 020 | standard nonelectric | 54 ft | 462 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 021 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 537 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 022 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 68 ft | 366 ft | $10–$15 | |
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 023 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 54 ft | 470 ft | $10–$15 | |
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 024 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 68 ft | 323 ft | $10–$15 | |
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 025 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 57 ft | 377 ft | $10–$15 | |
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 026 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 315 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 027 | standard nonelectric | 66 ft | 312 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 028 | standard nonelectric | 57 ft | 433 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 029 | standard nonelectric | 96 ft | 436 ft | $10–$15 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | 030 | standard nonelectric | yes | 66 ft | 346 ft | $10–$15 | |
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | G1 | group standard nonelectric | 237 ft | 543 ft | $20–$30 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | G2 | group standard nonelectric | 145 ft | 307 ft | $20–$30 | ||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | Scan and Pay Double | type not stated | yes | $10–$15 | |||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPGROUND | Scan and Pay Single | type not stated | yes | $10–$15 | |||
| COLD SPRINGS CAMPRGOUND | 010 | standard nonelectric | 61 ft | 776 ft | $10–$15 |
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 34 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Evergreen CampgroundPayette National Forest · 4.7 mi
LaffertyPayette National Forest · 11 mi
Last ChancePayette National Forest · 13 mi
HuckleberryPayette National Forest · 13 mi
Grouse CampgroundPayette National Forest · 16 miBlack Lake CampgroundPayette National Forest · 18 miFrom New Meadows, Idaho, take Highway 95 west for 8 miles. Turn onto Forest Road 089, located at the Pine Ridge Store junction. Take the gravel road approximately 2 miles to a fork. Turn left and follow the signs to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for New Meadows, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 28°F, day 57°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 13°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
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Cold Springs Campground - Payette NF (ID) 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 →