Elk Creek Campground (Sawtooth NF)
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Elk Creek Campground lies just off Highway 21 in a beautiful valley at the foot of the Sawtooth Mountain Range in central Idaho. Keep reading
Recreation
Elk Creek is situated in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. A myriad of excellent hiking and biking opportunities are available, with an estimated 750 miles of trails crisscrossing the valley and surrounding mountains, including the Idaho Centennial Trail, which passes nearby. Expansive and scenic Elk Meadow is near the campground, providing a great location for bird and wildlife watching.
Facilities
This small campground offers one group site that consists of three smaller sites. If the group site is not reserved, the individual sites are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Campers must walk a few yards from parking area to campsites. Vault toilets area provided. The road to the site and the parking spur within are paved.
Natural Features
Summer wildflowers are plentiful and lodgepole pines provide partial shade. Elk Creek is nearby. Temperatures are cool, with an average summer high of 78 degrees and a low of 40 degrees.
Nearby Attractions
Numerous sparkling lakes and streams, including the Salmon River, dot the area, making for great rainbow and native Westslope cutthroat trout fishing. Stanley and Redfish Lakes are nearby with great boating, water skiing, canoeing, kayaking and even more fishing. Popular area events include an Arts and Crafts Fair in July, and Wagon Days, Salmon Festival, Quilt Fair and Fireman's Ball in September.
What the agency tells you
Opening and closing dates are weather permitting, please call 928-537-8888 for more information.
FIRST COME FIRST SERVE sites must be booked in person. DO NOT call to determine availability, as they are only available on-site (if group site has not been reserved).
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.
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Idaho Off-road Vehicle Safety Message
Click here for more info about the Sawtooth National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…yards from parking area to campsites. Vault toilets area provided. The road to the site and the parking…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 136th darkest of 523 in ID
- Bortle 2
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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 · 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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 1 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
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.
| ELK | 1 | group standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 167 ft | 101 ft | $75 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Sheep Trail CampgroundChallis National Forest · 1.7 mi
Stanley Lake CampgroundChallis National Forest · 3.0 mi
Trap Creek CampgroundChallis National Forest · 3.4 miIron Creek Campground (ID)Challis National Forest · 6.3 mi
Cape Horn Winter RentalAnadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · 7.2 miThatcher CampgroundAnadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · 7.8 miFrom Stanley, Idaho, take State Highway 21 west approximately 8 miles. Turn north at milepost 123 onto Forest Road 892 and follow the road 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 Stanley, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 24°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 4°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
Elk Creek Campground (Sawtooth NF) 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 →