Pebble Guard Station
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- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 20 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 · 14 notices
In the agency’s own words
Pebble Guard Station is located at the base of Bonneville Peak along beautiful Pebble Creek, a tributary of the Portneuf River. The rustic one-room cabin offers a secluded retreat on four fenced acres, surrounded by high mountain vistas. The original Pebble Guard Station was built in 1908. The current structure stands at a higher altitude and was built in 1933. Guests can drive to Pebble Guard Station during warmer months, but it can only be accessed by snowmobile or other snow means in the winter. Those arriving in winter should expect to haul their gear and supplies for about 6 miles on a groomed trail. The cabin supplies most of the comforts of home, especially during the warmer months, but guests may need to bring some additional items. Keep reading
Recreation
Guests at Pebble Guard Station will find opportunities for recreation year-round. Hunting is a popular pastime, and a nearby beaver pond provides good fishing and wading. Trails for hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding and off-road vehicles are nearby ( Idaho OHV safety message ). In winter, the area turns into a snowmobiling playground.
Facilities
Pebble Guard Station can accommodate up to six people on the two bunkbeds and folding cots provided. Cabin amenities include a mudroom with a sink, countertop, and seasonal shower facilities. The main room serves as the kitchen and sleeping room with two bunk beds with mattresses, a wood stove, table with chairs, folding cots, a broom and dustpan, and stove/oven. Propane appliances include lights, stove/oven, and water heater. The propane heater located in the main room is currently not functional. Guests should come prepared with their own firewood to heat the cabin with the wood stove. Water is only availble during the summer season. A single vault toilet, campfire ring, grill, lantern post, and picnic table are located outside. The parking area can accommodate up to 3 RVs. The main access road, Pebble Road, FS #036, is closed after November 15 every year and guests will have to walk, bike, ski, snowshoe, or snowmobile in approximately 6 miles on a groomed trail to the cabin. Winter guests should call the Westside Ranger District to check snow conditions before reserving this cabin from November through May. Winter guests need to bring their own water. 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. Garbage bags and cleaning supplies are not available. Pebble 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 cabin is located at 6,320 feet on the open foothills of Pebble Basin, which offers expansive views into the high country of Bonneville Peak. This peak is the highest of the Portneuf Range, and the mountains of this range are covered with pine forest and green vegetation. A variety of wildlife inhabits this area, including mule deer, elk, cougars, coyote and black bears ( bear safety tips ). Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (208) 757-3999.
Nearby Attractions
Lava Hot Springs makes a fun day trip from the cabin. Visitors can enjoy a natural hot springs soaking pool, Olympic-sized swimming pool, waterslides and diving platforms. Two 9-hole disc golf courses are linked around the Lava Hot Springs pool complex. Tubing on the Portneuf River is also a very popular activity. Tube rentals are available throughout town.
What the agency tells you
Pebble 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.
The propane heater located in the main room is currently not functional. Guests should come prepared with their own firewood to heat the cabin with the wood stove.
Everything else this campground posts · 11
No water is available at the cabin during winter months.
The main access road, Pebble Road, FS #036, is closed after November 15 every year and guests will have to walk, bike, ski, snowshoe, or snowmobile in approximately 6 miles to the cabin.
Lighting instructions will be posted in the cabin; please read and follow them carefully before lighting any appliances.
Please leave the cabin clean for the next occupant.
This is a pack-it-in/pack-it-out facility.
Pets are allowed at the cabin, but guests must clean up after them and ensure that they don't damage furniture.
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.
Guests should be aware that there is a risk of exposure to hantavirus when visiting remote cabins; click here to learn more.
Off-road vehicle stickers are required for ATVs, motorcycles, and snowmobiles using the area.
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
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Showers
- Seasonal Showers
- SHOWERS (SEASONAL) on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER (SEASONAL) on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Playground
- Yes
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Hot springs, River, Creek
- Biking
- Birding
- Cross Country Skiing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- Off Highway Vehicle Trails
- Snowmobile
- Snowshoeing
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 484th darkest of 523 in ID
- Bortle 3
Full this Saturdayread 16:37 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
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 16:37 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
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.
| PGS | 01 | cabin nonelectric | 50 ft | 465 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
Big Springs - CaribouCaribou National Forest · 0.3 miGoodenough Creek CampgroundPocatello Field Office · 13 mi
Scout Mountain CampgroundCaribou National Forest · 15 mi
Mink Creek Group Site CampgroundCaribou National Forest · 17 miGraves Creek CampgroundPocatello Field Office · 21 miHawkins Reservoir CampgroundPocatello Field Office · 21 miPebble Guard Station is located about 16 miles north of Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. Just east of Lava Hot Springs, look for the "Pebble Area" sign and turn left (north) onto Blaser Highway/Old Highway 30. Go north on the paved highway for 9 miles to Pebble Creek Road (known locally as Mike's Place or Whiskey Mike's). Turn left (west), across railroad tracks on gravel Forest Road 036. Travel 6.5 miles to the guard station. (This road is closed on November 15th of each year.) Big Springs Campground is 1/2-mile beyond the cabin.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Inkom, 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
Pebble 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 Pebble Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear Michael K. Simpson, I’m a constituent in Idaho’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Pebble Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Pebble 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. Pebble Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Pebble 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 Pebble 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 Pebble Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear James E. Risch, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Pebble Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Pebble 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. Pebble Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Pebble 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 Pebble 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 Pebble Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho
Dear Mike Crapo, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Pebble Guard Station, Caribou National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Pebble 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. Pebble Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Pebble 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 Pebble Guard Station (Caribou National Forest, Idaho) via campanac.com