Malad Summit 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 16:37 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
Malad Summit Guard Station is located 14 miles north of Malad, Idaho on Malad Pass just off I-15. The rustic one-room cabin is in a forested setting in narrow Mill Creek Drainage, and offers a secluded retreat on fenced acreage surrounded by scenic high country views. The original guard station was established in 1908, but was replaced by the existing cabin in 1934. The cabin is accessible by car when there is no snow. Guests should be prepared in snowy conditions to ski, snowshoe or snowmobile half a mile from the plowed road to reach the cabin. The guard station offers many amenities for a comfortable stay, but fewer conveniences are available in winter. Keep reading
Recreation
The surrounding area offers a variety of recreational activities. Trails are provided for hikers, mountain bikers, horseback riders and off-road vehicles ( Idaho OHV safety message ). Anglers can fish for small brook trout in Mill Creek. Hunting for game and game birds is another popular pastime.
Facilities
Malad Summit Guard Station is located near Mill Creek. The cabin can sleep six people on the three bunkbeds provided. Amenities include three bunkbeds with mattresses, a wood stove, table with four chairs, a broom and dustpan, vacuum, cook prep area, and sink. Electrical appliances include space heater, lights, and induction stove. A single vault toilet, campfire ring, grill, lantern post, and picnic tables are located outside the cabin. Parking can accommodate up to three RVs. The cabin's water is shut off late September to May. Winter guests need to bring their own water. Forest road 041 is not maintained/plowed in the winter months. When snow accumulation doesn't allow for vehicles to access the cabin via Forest Road 041, cabin renters can park at the overnight winter parking area past the cattleguard at the USFS boundary. Cabin renters should not park on private property before the cattleguard. The overnight parking area is signed and can accommodate up to 4 vehicles. Renters can hike, snowshoe, cross-country ski, or snowmobile to Malad Summit Guard Station. Guests may find limited dishes and cookware. Bedding, towels, first aid and emergency supplies, matches, lanterns, and flashlights are not provided. Guests are expected to clean the cabin and pack out their trash before leaving. Cleaning supplies are available. Guests should bring their own garbage bags and pack out all trash. Malad Summit Guard Station is managed by Pinnacle Parks Llc under a special use permit with the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. For questions please contact 208-757-3999 between the hours of 8am and 9pm.
Natural Features
The rustic single-room cabin is tucked into a deciduous and conifer forest at an elevation of around 6,000 feet. Mill Creek meanders through the site. The front porch invites guests to sit and enjoy views of the forest and possible wildlife sightings. Black bears, wolves, elk, moose, mule deer, bison, grizzly bears, mountain lions and pronghorn are some of the species native to the area ( bear safety tips ). Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (208) 757-3999.
What the agency tells you
Malad Summit Guard Station is managed by Pinnacle Parks Llc under a special use permit with the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. For questions please contact 208-757-3999 between the hours of 8am and 9pm.
An access code for the gate and door is sent in the reservation confirmation email.
Induction stove heating element will only activate if cookware is placed on the stovetop. Cookware must be made of a magnetic material.
Everything else this campground posts · 12
Shower facility, oven and refridgerator are no longer available. Guests should plan on bringing their own coolers for cold food storage.
No water is available at the cabin during winter months beginning late September through May. Winter guests should bring their own water.
Forest road 041 is not maintained/plowed in the winter months. When snow accumulation doesn't allow for vehicles to access the cabin via Forest Road 041, cabin renters can park at the overnight winter parking area past the cattleguard at the USFS boundary. Cabin renters should not park on private property before the cattleguard. The overnight parking area is signed and can accommodate up to 4 vehicles. Renters can hike, snowshoe, cross-country ski, or snowmobile to Malad Summit Guard Station.
Please leave the cabin clean for the next occupant.
This is a pack-it-in/pack-it-out facility.
Smoking is prohibited.
Pets are allowed, but guests must ensure no damage to furnishings and no harassment of wildlife; guests must clean up after their animals.
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. Since water is not available during the off season at the cabin, please bring extra water to help extinguish a campfire.
Off-road vehicle stickers are required for ATVs, motorcycles, and snowmobiles using the area
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- 1 electric
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER (SEASONAL) on 1 of 1 campsite records
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Biking
- Birding
- Cross Country Skiing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- Off Highway Vehicle Trails
- Snowmobile
- Snowshoeing
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 408th darkest of 523 in ID
- Bortle 3
Full this Saturdayread 16:37 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:37 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 · 11
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 · 4
recreation.gov availability, read 16:37 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
| MSGS | 01 | cabin electric | 50 ft | 109 ft |
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
Malad Summit CampgroundCaribou National Forest · 0.6 miHawkins Reservoir CampgroundPocatello Field Office · 12 mi
Third Creek Group SiteCaribou National Forest · 13 miGoodenough Creek CampgroundPocatello Field Office · 21 mi
Dry Canyon CampgroundCaribou National Forest · 21 mi
Scout Mountain CampgroundCaribou National Forest · 24 miMalad Guard Station is located 11 miles north of Malad, ID. On 1-15, take Exit 22 (Devil Creek Reservoir). Go north on N. Old Highway 191 for 3.5 miles. Turn left on E11000N/Forest Road 041 and cross over the interstate, drive 1.3 miles. At the bend keep right and continue on Forest Road 041 road for another mile. At the forest boundary there will be a Malad Summit Cabin sign and entrance gate. The cabin is located a few hundred feet past the entrance gate. Call the Westside Ranger District for winter parking instructions and access at 208-236-7500.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Downey, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 32°F, day 59°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 13°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
Malad Summit 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 Malad Summit Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear Michael K. Simpson, I’m a constituent in Idaho’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Malad Summit Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Malad Summit 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Malad Summit Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Malad Summit 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 Malad Summit 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 Malad Summit Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear James E. Risch, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Malad Summit Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Malad Summit 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Malad Summit Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Malad Summit 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 Malad Summit 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 Malad Summit Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear Mike Crapo, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Malad Summit Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Malad Summit 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Malad Summit Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Malad Summit 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 Malad Summit Guard Station (Caribou National Forest, Idaho) via campanac.com