Johnson Guard Station
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 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:46 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Johnson Guard Station is located 30 miles east of Soda Springs, Idaho, on a site that was established in 1910. The current building was constructed in 1934, and is named after James J. Johnson, who served as ranger of the Georgetown Ranger District from 1907-1913. It's been used for various purposes over the years, from serving as summer headquarters to housing work crews. The cabin is accessible by car in warmer months and by snowmobile in winter. The cabin provides a few conveniences, so guests should be prepared to bring the supplies and equipment they need to make their stay more comfortable. Keep reading
Recreation
The Bear Canyon OHV Trail is about 1 mile north of the guard station ( Idaho OHV safety message ). Hikers and mountain bikers will also find trails nearby. The area surrounding the cabin is a playground for snowmobilers and skiers in the winter months. Anglers can fish in nearby Diamond Creek. The surrounding area also attracts game and game bird hunters.
Facilities
The guard station has a maximum capacity of 15 people. One sleeping room is available with four single beds.. Guests need to provide bedding and sleeping pads. The kitchen has a gas stove for cooking and a dining table with chairs. A gas furnace heats the cabin. Propane is provided for the lights, cook stove and heater. A vault toilet and picnic table are located outside. No water or electricity is available at the cabin. Guests will need to supply their own water for drinking, washing and cooking. Bedding/sleeping pads, cookware, kitchen utensils and emergency supplies are not provided. Guests are required to bring garbage bags to pack out their trash. The cabin should be cleaned before leaving, so guests should bring some cleaning supplies.
Natural Features
The cabin sits in a meadow at an elevation of 6,500 feet surrounded by the peaks of Dry Ridge and the Webster subrange in southeastern Idaho. Stands of aspen and lodgepole pine dot the landscape. Wildlife in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest includes black bears, wolves, elk, moose, mule deer, bison, grizzly bears, mountain lions and pronghorn ( bear safety tips ).
What the agency tells you
4-7 days prior to your reservation you will receive an e-mail with your cabin code
Snow conditions can often affect cabin accessibility in the fall, winter and spring. Please call the Montpelier Ranger District Office to check snow conditions before reserving this cabin from November through June.
No water is available at the cabin
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Lighting instructions are posted in the cabin; please read and follow them carefully before lighting any appliance
Please leave the cabin clean for the next occupant
This is a pack-it-in/pack-it-out facility
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
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.
Pets are not allowed inside the guard station. Pets must be on a leash at all times when on the guard station site. Clean up all pet waste before checking out of the facility
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…for the lights, cook stove and heater. A vault toilet and picnic table are located outside. No water or…”
- Playground
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Winter sports
Full this Saturdayread 16:46 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:46 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.
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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:46 UTC · rules read Oct 1, 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.
| JOHNSON GUARD STATION | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 1,486 ft | $60 |
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 agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Diamond Creek Guard StationCaribou National Forest · 1.5 mi
Stump Creek Guard StationCaribou National Forest · 8.2 mi
Mill Canyon CampgroundCaribou National Forest · 10 mi
Summit View CampgroundCaribou National Forest · 12 mi
Clear Creek Guard StationCaribou National Forest · 14 miSwift Creek CampgroundBridger National Forest · 15 miFrom Soda Springs, take Highway 34 north approximately 12 miles to the China Hat turnoff (Blackfoot River Narrows). This road will follow Blackfoot River for another 11 miles to a junction; there is a Forest Service sign at this point. Take the right fork (Caribou National Forest Road 102) southeast for another 10 miles to the guard station. The road will turn into Diamond Creek Road. Maps are available upon request at the district office.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Auburn, WY
Typical weather
Typical October night 26°F, day 56°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 5°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
Johnson Guard Station 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 Johnson Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear Michael K. Simpson, I’m a constituent in Idaho’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Johnson Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Johnson Guard Station 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Johnson Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Johnson Guard Station. 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 Johnson Guard Station (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 Johnson Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear James E. Risch, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Johnson Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Johnson Guard Station 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Johnson Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Johnson Guard Station. 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 Johnson Guard Station (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 Johnson Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear Mike Crapo, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Johnson Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Johnson Guard Station 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Johnson Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Johnson Guard Station. 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 Johnson Guard Station (Caribou National Forest, Idaho) via campanac.com