CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
Bureau of Land Management · Challis Field Office · ID

Herd Lake Campground

1Heads up1 fire 49 mi away
Wildfire
East Fork fire · 49 mi away · 1 acres · updated Oct 17, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 17, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
6,960 ftElevation
82 ftWater · Lake Creek
26.7 miNE of Sun Valley, ID
20%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 65th darkest of 523 in ID

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Herd Lake Campsite is adjacent to Jerry Peak-Jim McClure Wilderness. There is one (1) first come, first served campsite located 10 miles southeast of the East Fork Road on Herd Lake Road. The site is located about 1 mile north of Herd Lake, tucked down below the road and next to Herd Creek. The access road to the campsite is narrow with limited turn-around space. Use caution with trailers. A trail provides non-motorized access to the lake. Amenities include: 1 campsite with picnic table and fire ring, 1 vault toilet, trailhead to Herd Lake. This site has limited cell service and no potable water.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…with picnic table and fire ring, 1 vault toilet, trailhead to Herd Lake. This site has limited cell…”
Drinking water
None, bring your own
“…This site has limited cell service and no potable water.”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake, Creek
Fishing
Hiking
Horseback riding
Hunting
Picnicking
Wildlife viewing
Cell signal · Cell signal · BLM says
Spotty
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · Aug 23, 2026
Cell signal: the BLM’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise. · Sep 8, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itBureau of Land Managementthe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 6

What you actually pay

The sign priceBureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Campsites are first come, first served.
Camping Fee: Free, Stay limit: 14 days.
Stay limit14 Days
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate44.09495, -114.18173

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight34°Partly Cloudy
Saturday56°Mostly Sunny
Saturday Night33°Partly Cloudy
Sunday53°Mostly Sunny

NWS forecast for Clayton, ID

Source: National Weather Service, PIH forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 28°F, day 57°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 7°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°0°

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.

Measured at: CHILLY BARTON FLAT, ID (USC00101671), 19 miles away and 700 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Boulder - White Clouds139,235 acres · 8 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026

Who answers for this land

Mike Simpson, official portrait

Herd Lake 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: Bureau of Land Management publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.011 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 523 rated federal campgrounds in Idaho · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the BLM’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise. · Sep 8, 2026

“…toilet, trailhead to Herd Lake. This site has limited cell service and no potable water.”

Nearest place of any size: Clayton, ID, 14.9 mi SE. Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026