Jensen Cabin
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 26 of the next 30 nights read 15:28 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
Jensen Cabin is located 13 miles from the town of Alpine, Wyoming, off the McCoy Creek Road. The current cabin was built in the earily 70's, but the site has been fully remodeled. The 2-room cabin with a loft is made of rough cut lumber and has meatal sideing and a metal roof. This is a NO Pet Facility, Please no dogs. Guests can drive a vehicle to the cabin from mid-May through early November, although about 10 miles of the trip are on gravel roads. Snowmobiles and cross-country skis are required to access the cabin from approximately mid Novemeber through mid-May. The trek from the nearest available parking at the snowmobile trailhead to the cabin is 10 miles. Keep reading
Recreation
The Jensen Cabin provides access to a variety of year-round recreational activities, including horseback riding, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Berry picking is available in late summer. Some of the other activities located within a few miles include off-road vehicle and motorcycle riding, snowmobiling, hiking and mountain biking. Game and game bird hunting is a popular pastime in season.
Facilities
The Jensen cabin sleeps six and includes: two sets of bunkbeds are in one room, two twin beds in the loft, mattresses on all beds, a wood stove with cut firewood for heat, a propane stove for cooking, a table with benches and chairs near the wood stove. There are limited cooking utensils and pots in the cabin. There is no water or sink inside the cabin, but there is a plastic tub available for washing dishes and washing hands, etc. A hand pump for water, a vault toilet, fire pit, and a picnic table are located outside. Electricity is not provided and there is no cell service at the cabin. Guests may wish to bring battery or propane-powered lighting. Bedding, matches, and emergency items like a first aid kit are not provided. A large trash can is provided, but trash bags are needed to pack out garbage. All garbage and food items should be stored inside the cabin at all times to avoid attracting bears and other wildlife. All vehicles, including ATVs, UTVs, trailers and campers, can only be parked on the gravel driveway into the cabin and in the limited parking area at the cabin. There is no parking, camping or riding (except snowmachines) in the meadows surrounding the cabin.
Natural Features
Jensen Cabin is situated at aproxemently 6,400 feet on the Caribou-Targhee Natoinal Forest. The cabin sits on the edge of a meadow surrounded by pine trees. Guests can enjoy views of the distant mountains. Wildlife in the area includes black bear, elk, moose, and mule deer. McCoy Creek and Jensen Creek are nearby for fishing opportunities.
Nearby Attractions
Jackson Hole, Wy National Elk Refuge Grand Teton National Park Alpine, Wy Palisades Reservoir Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (208) 523-1412.
Charges & Cancellations
There will be no changes allowed to stay reservations. If a change is needed you will need to cancel the reservation and make a new one.
What the agency tells you
- This is a NO Pet Facility, Please no dogs - Please leave the cabin clean for the next occupant. - Please make sure fires in the outside campfire ring are extinguished completely before leaving the cabin. Abandoning campfires during any point in your stay at the cabin can result in a violation. - This is a pack-it-in/pack-it-out facility, please take all trash with you when leaving the cabin. - 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 - There will be no changes allowed to stay reservations - 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 https://www.dontmovefirewood.org/ .
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Not allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- ACCESSIBLE VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER (HAND PUMP) on 1 of 1 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE DRINKING WATER on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Cell signal
- Little or none
- Firewood
- Mentioned
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Creek, Meadow
- Backpacking
- Berry Picking
- Hunting
- Off Highway Vehicle Trails
- Off Road Vehicle Trails
- Snowmobile
- Snowmobile Trails
- Snowshoeing
- Wood Cutting
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Forest Service says
- None
- Fall color · reported 14 days ago, 34 km away
- Peak color
Full this Saturdayread 15:28 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Thu, Oct 22. read 15:28 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 · 13
What you actually pay
“There will be no changes allowed to stay reservations. If a change is needed you will need to cancel the reservation and make a new one.” · 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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:28 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 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.
| Jesen Cabin | cabin nonelectric | 708 ft | $95 |
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 phone number
Where it is
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Alpine Northwest, WY
Typical weather
Typical October night 29°F, day 59°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 11°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 · 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
Jensen Cabin 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 Jensen Cabin, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear Michael K. Simpson, I’m a constituent in Idaho’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Jensen Cabin, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Jensen Cabin 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. Jensen Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Jensen Cabin. 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 Jensen Cabin (Caribou 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 Jensen Cabin, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear James E. Risch, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Jensen Cabin, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Jensen Cabin 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. Jensen Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Jensen Cabin. 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 Jensen Cabin (Caribou 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 Jensen Cabin, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear Mike Crapo, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Jensen Cabin, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Jensen Cabin 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. Jensen Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Jensen Cabin. 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 Jensen Cabin (Caribou National Forest, Idaho) via campanac.com
How we know this · 4
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“…outside. Electricity is not provided and there is no cell service at the cabin. Guests may wish to bring battery or…”