Egan Basin Guard Station
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 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:27 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Egan Basin Guard Station is a rustic retreat in the Montpelier Ranger District of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest of southeastern Idaho, near the Utah border. The Montpelier area is known for its abundance of year-round recreational opportunities. The guard station is accessible by SUV/4 wheel drive during warmer weather. Snow conditions may exist in the Fall and spring. The cabin is used as a warming hut during the winter months and is not reservable (December 1 to April 30). The cabin provides few amenities, so guests should be prepared to haul most of the gear and supplies they'll need to make their stay comfortable. Keep reading
Recreation
Guests can enjoy nearby trails for hiking, mountain biking and off-road vehicles ( Idaho OHV safety message ). Winter sports include snowmobiling and cross-country skiing. Anglers can fish in nearby Beaver Creek. Hunting areas are located nearby.
Facilities
The guard station has a maximum capacity of 15 people. This is a single-room A-frame cabin with a table and chairs, two single beds and a sleeping loft. A wood stove is provided for heat and firewood may be available. A picnic table is just outside the cabin. An outhouse with vault toilet is located on-site. Water and electricity are not available. Guests must provide their own drinking water. A cook stove, light sources, cookware, kitchen utensils, bedding and emergency supplies are not provided. Guests must bring trash bags to pack out their garbage, and are expected to clean the cabin before leaving.
Natural Features
Egan Basin Guard Station is situated in an open meadow surrounded by mixed conifers and aspens. Wildflowers dot the landscape in the summer. The cabin sits at an elevation of 7,500 feet surrounded by the limestone and dolomite peaks of the Bear River Mountains. Large populations of deer, elk and moose inhabit this rugged backcountry. Pikas and marmots make their home here as well. Beavers are often spotted in the mountain streams.
What the agency tells you
4-7 days prior to your reservation you will receive an e-mail with your cabin code
Snow conditions can often affect cabin accessibility in the fall, winter and spring. Please call the Montpelier Ranger District Office to check snow conditions before reserving this cabin from November through June.
No water is available at the cabin
Everything else this campground posts · 6
Please leave the cabin clean for the next occupant
This is a pack-it-in/pack-it-out facility
Guests should be aware that there is a risk of exposure to hantavirus when visiting remote cabins; click here to learn more
Click here for more information about 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.
Pets are not allowed inside the guard station. Pets must be on a leash at all times when on the guard station site. Clean up all pet waste before checking out of the facility
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…just outside the cabin. An outhouse with vault toilet is located on-site. Water and electricity are not…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…available. Guests must provide their own drinking water. A cook stove, light sources, cookware, kitchen…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Winter sports
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 25 km away
- Past peak
Full this Saturdayread 16:27 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:27 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 16:27 UTC · rules read Oct 1, 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.
| EGAN BASIN GUARD STATION | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 908 ft | $35 |
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
Cloverleaf CampgroundCache National Forest · 3.5 mi
NORTH FORK CAMPGROUND - St. CHARLES CANYONCache National Forest · 3.5 mi
Porcupine (ID)Cache National Forest · 3.9 mi
Davis Canyon CampgroundCache National Forest · 5.6 mi
Willow Flat CampgroundCache National Forest · 6.6 miEgan Basin Guard Station is located 31 miles southwest of Montpelier, Idaho. Follow Highway 89 south 17 miles to St. Charles. Turn west on 200 North. Continue west 1.5 miles to Forest Road 411 (Green Canyon) and follow 411 west/southwest to Forest Road 415. At this intersection, follow the signs west 5 miles to the guard station sign, turn south for 1/4 mile to the guard station. Maps are available upon request at the district office.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Garden City, UT
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
Egan Basin Guard Station 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 →
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 moneyMichael K. SimpsonU.S. Representative · Idaho’s 2nd 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 Egan Basin Guard Station, Cache National Forest, Idaho
Dear Michael K. Simpson, I’m a constituent in Idaho’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Egan Basin Guard Station, Cache National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Egan Basin Guard Station 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. Egan Basin Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Egan Basin Guard Station. 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 Egan Basin Guard Station (Cache 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 Egan Basin Guard Station, Cache National Forest, Idaho
Dear James E. Risch, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Egan Basin Guard Station, Cache National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Egan Basin Guard Station 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. Egan Basin Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Egan Basin Guard Station. 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 Egan Basin Guard Station (Cache 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 Egan Basin Guard Station, Cache National Forest, Idaho
Dear Mike Crapo, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Egan Basin Guard Station, Cache National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Egan Basin Guard Station 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. Egan Basin Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Egan Basin Guard Station. 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 Egan Basin Guard Station (Cache National Forest, Idaho) via campanac.com