Falls Campground
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading; a database flag says not open
- A night
- $20–$40Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 25All of them booked ahead
- Season
- May 1Opens May 1. No closing date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Falls Campground is located next to the Snake River in beautiful Swan Valley at an elevation of 5,100 feet. Idaho Falls, Idaho is just 45 miles west. Visitors enjoy fishing and canoeing on the Snake and viewing local wildlife. Keep reading
Recreation
The Snake River offers excellent cutthroat trout fishing, canoeing, floating, rafting and kayaking. Conant Boat Ramp is nearby and open to the public.
Facilities
The campground offers one group site that can accommodate up to 150 people. Several single sites are also available, all with picnic tables, campfire rings and grills. 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 alongside the Snake River among cottonwood trees, which provide partial shade. Grassy meadows and summer wildflowers dot the landscape. Wildlife is plentiful in the river bottom. Eagles, osprey, moose and deer are frequently spotted. Fall Creek Falls is less than 1/4 mile from the campground. This scenic cascade drops 60 feet over a travertine outcropping on the river's edge. It is visible from some parts of the campground. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (541) 351-1182.
Nearby Attractions
Palisades Reservoir is less than 20 miles from Falls Campground, with great boating, water skiing, canoeing, fishing and swimming. The Fall Creek area has many trails for hiking, mountain biking, horseback and ATV riding.
What the agency tells you
Wildlife Caution
Idaho OHV Safety Message
A fee of $8 per extra vehicle will be collected at the campground per day
Everything else this campground posts · 4
No ATVs/OHVs allowed in 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
- 25 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 120 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…tables, campfire rings and grills. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided,…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…rings and grills. 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, River, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 433rd darkest of 523 in ID
- Bortle 3
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 · 16
What you actually pay
“A fee of $8 per extra vehicle will be collected at the campground per day” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $20–$40 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
25 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 24 mapped sitesAll 25 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 24 of the 25 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. 25 of the 25 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.
| Group | GS-1 | group standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 279 ft | 77 ftSnake River | 457 ft | $60 |
| SNG/DBL | 001 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 121 ft | 660 ftSnake River | 286 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 002 | rv nonelectric | 35 ft | 121 ft | 678 ft | 396 ft | $20 |
| SNG/DBL | 003 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 161 ft | 464 ftSnake River | 419 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 004 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 114 ft | 305 ftSnake River | 467 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 005 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 114 ft | 196 ftSnake River | 513 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 006 | standard nonelectric | 120 ft | 141 ft | 227 ftSnake River | 317 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 007 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 92 ft | 118 ftSnake River | 506 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 008 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 92 ft | 85 ftSnake River | 477 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 009 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 103 ft | 216 ftSnake River | 295 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 010 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 128 ft | 87 ftSnake River | 430 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 011 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | $20–$40 | |||
| SNG/DBL | 012 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 128 ft | 92 ftSnake River | 339 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 013 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 103 ft | 319 ftSnake River | 192 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 014 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 166 ft | 515 ftSnake River | 158 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 015 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 117 ft | 87 ftSnake River | 244 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 016 | standard nonelectric | 100 ft | 132 ft | 218 ftSnake River | 141 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 017 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 65 ft | 149 ftSnake River | 165 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 018 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | 65 ft | 195 ftSnake River | 132 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 019 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 114 ft | 308 ftSnake River | 89 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 020 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 90 ft | 570 ftSnake River | 123 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 021 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 108 ft | 508 ftSnake River | 200 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 022 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 90 ft | 594 ftSnake River | 212 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 023 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 130 ft | 700 ftSnake River | 213 ft | $20–$40 |
| SNG/DBL | 024 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 134 ft | 679 ftSnake River | 171 ft | $20–$40 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Palisades Creek CampgroundTarghee National Forest · 7.9 mi
Riverside Park CampgroundTarghee National Forest · 10 mi
CalamityCaribou National Forest · 10 mi
Pine Creek CampgroundTarghee National Forest · 13 mi
BIG ELKTarghee National Forest · 15 mi
Mike HarrisTarghee National Forest · 17 miFrom Idaho Falls, travel 45 miles east on Highway 26. Turn off right before the Snake River Bridge and continue 3.5 miles on a gravel 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 Swan Valley, ID
Typical weather
Typical May night 35°F, day 66°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 35°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
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
Falls Campground 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 →