Line Creek Stock Campground
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 15 mi
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 7All of them booked ahead
- Season
- – November 4Closes November 4. No opening date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
The Line Creek Stock Camp is located 87 miles from St. Maries Idaho up the St. Joe River on Forest Highway 50. It is at 3800 feet elevation and on the designated Wild and Scenic St. Joe River. The campground includes 7 pull-through camping units (5 available for stock reservations), facilities for stock animals, firepits and vault toilets. Keep reading
Recreation
Catch and release fishing is a primary activity in the upper St. Joe River. The campground is ideally situated for stock riding. The terrain is steep with over 100 miles of non-motorized and 60 miles of multiple use trail. These can be traveled for day rides and/ or packins. Day hikes and backpacking opportunities are also enjoyed. Many of the trails are accessed directly out of the campground. The St. Joe River Trail 48 winds along beside the St. Joe River for 18 miles to its endpoint at Heller Campground. The Line Creek Stock Camp is also ideally situated for driving for pleasure with primitive roads to travel: to Heller Campground and Montana, to the Surveyors Lookout and other sites along Forest Road 201, to the Snow Peak trailhead and up into Gold Creek and over Gold Pass towards St. Regis Montana. There are three rental opportunities in the area: Red Ives Ranger cabin, Beaver Creek A-frame and Surveyors Lookout. There are four other campgrounds in the close vicinity.
Facilities
There is day and overnight use with vault toilets. There are 7 campsites with fire rings. Six sites have feed bunks and two sites have highline poles. One site has a corral. More corrals and picnic tables are planned in the next two seasons (2024 and 2025). Stock water is available at the river.
Natural Features
The Line Creek Stock Camp sits alongside the St. Joe Wild and Scenic River with convenient access to river. There is a day use area with a pool deep enough for swimming and fishing with a small beach. It is within steep forested terrain with a large open area just downstream. The upper St. Joe is a recommended wilderness area with trail access.
Nearby Attractions
The historic Red Ives Ranger Station and museum is one mile downsteam of the campground. Several trailheads take off directly from the campground but there are many others accessing other areas that are within a short drive. Forest Highway 50 and Forest Road 218 follow along the St. Joe River, providing excellent access for rafting in the spring, floating later in the summer and fishing. There is an outfitter that provides whitewater raft trips in the spring and early summer. There is also a fishing outfitter 5 miles up the St. Joe River trail as well as hunting outfitters in the area. St. Regis Montana is 41 miles away on a combination of paved and well graded gravel roads. (summer 2024 this route will be closed with other access being more primitive). The gateway town of Avery Idaho is about 40 miles downstream and has a small store with gas and fast food, a restaurant with pizza, chicken and beer, a fly fisherman shop with fishing supplies, souvenirs, deli sandwiches and ice cream.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 7
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…for stock animals, firepits and vault toilets. Recreation Catch and release fishing is a primary…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek, Beach
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 · 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.
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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
7 sites
All 7 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. 7 of the 7 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Red Ives CabinSt. Joe National Forest · 0.9 mi
Beaver Creek A-Frame Cabin (ID)St. Joe National Forest · 3.1 miFly Flat CampgroundSt. Joe National Forest · 5.1 miConrad Crossing CampgroundSt. Joe National Forest · 8.5 mi
Surveyors LookoutSt. Joe National Forest · 9.3 mi
Mammoth Springs CampgroundSt. Joe National Forest · 14 miFrom Saint Maries, take Highway 3 north. After 1/2 mile, turn right on Saint Joe River Road and continue for 76 miles on Forest Highway 50. Then turn right on Forest Service Road 218 (Red Ives Road) and continue 11 miles to campground
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for St. Regis, MT
Typical weather
Typical November night 25°F, day 42°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical November night 25°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 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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Line Creek Stock 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 →