Golden Gate Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 9All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Golden Gate Campground offers 9 campsites in a peaceful, remote setting near mountain slopes covered in dense pine forest. Peak season for the campground is typically early June through late September. It can be accessed by most vehicles; however the road is narrow and may be rough in spots. Keep reading
Recreation
The campground is near several trailheads into the Frank Church - River of No Return Wilderness. Check on the Motor Vehicle Use Map (MVUM) for non-motorized and motorized trails. The area is a popular destination for hikers, mountain bikers and equestrians. The South Fork Salmon River and Johnson Creek offer opportunities for fishing. Berry picking and hunting are popular pastimes in season.
Facilities
2 vault toilets Natural Features The campground sits in a pretty mountain meadow a stone's throw from scenic Johnson Creek, a tributary of the South Fork Salmon River. Wildlife watchers may see deer, elk, bear and moose. Bald eagles are often spotted soaring overhead.
Nearby Attractions
The tiny community of Yellow Pine established in 1902 is just north of the campground and offers limited services. The popular Yellow Pine Music & Harmonica Festival is held annually in August.
Charges & Cancellations
Non-refundable
What the agency tells you
Primitive campground
No cell service
No potable water
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 9
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…popular pastimes in season. Facilities 2 vault toilets Natural Features The campground sits in a pretty…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek, Meadow
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Picnicking
- Scenic drives
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $10 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.
“Non-refundable” · this campground’s own terms
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 Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
9 sites
All 9 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. 9 of the 9 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Golden Gate | 1 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| Golden Gate | 2 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| Golden Gate | 3 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| Golden Gate | 4 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| Golden Gate | 5 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| Golden Gate | 6 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| Golden Gate | 7 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| Golden Gate | 8 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| Golden Gate | 9 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Elk Creek CabinsPlacer & Dredge Mining Prohibition Anadromous Spawning Area · 3.5 miFrom Boise, Idaho, travel north on State Highway 55 approximately 80 miles to Cascade, Idaho.
From Cascade, Idaho, travel north on State Highway 55 only a short distance to the turnoff at the Warm Lake Road (Forest Highway 22).
Proceed along Forest Highway 22 northeast approximately 25 miles.
When you arrive at the Warm Lake area, Forest Highway 22 will become Forest Service (FS) Road 579. Continue east on FS Road 579 until it intersects with the FS Road 413, approximately 10 miles.
The agency publishes this point for 4 campgrounds; it’s likely a district office, not the campground. Use the agency’s own page for directions.
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
Golden Gate 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 →