Picnic Point (ID)
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 8All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Picnic Point Campground is located on a bluff overlooking beautiful Warm Lake, at an elevation of 5,300 feet. Visitors enjoy boating, fishing, swimming, hiking and viewing local wildlife. Keep reading
Recreation
Warm Lake offers great fishing opportunities for cutthroat, rainbow, lake and bull trout. Boating, canoeing and swimming are popular activities. A boat ramp is located at neighboring Shoreline Campground. Billy Rice Swim Beach is within walking distance, offering a day-use site for picnicking and access to a swimming beach. The surrounding area offers great hiking, mountain biking, horseback and off-road vehicle riding and hunting. The WeWuKiye (Wa Wu Kia) Trail No. 252 was recently built and can be accessed nearby, at the entrance to Shoreline Campground. It is available for hiking and mountain biking. For off-road vehicle enthusiasts, Telephone Ridge Trail No. 112 offers 20 miles of trails for all riding levels, with staging areas at Shoreline Campground and at Warm Lake Campground down the road.
Facilities
The campground offers tent-only campsites, which can be accessed via a 50 to 200 foot hike from the parking area. Some sites overlook the scenic lake. Stairs lead to the lakeshore from three locations within the campground. Sites are equipped with a table, campfire ring and grill. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided throughout the campground, but electricity is not available. The parking area is dirt, as are the pathways within the campground.
Natural Features
The campground is situated beneath towering ponderosa pines, which provide partial shade. Summer wildflowers are abundant in the area. A variety of wildlife including bears, deer, elk, fox, grouse, eagles, osprey, grosbeaks, whooping cranes and otters, lives around the lake.
Nearby Attractions
Rustic North Shore Lodge is not far from the campground, offering a small restaurant, lounge and store with limited supplies.
What the agency tells you
Idaho OHV Safety Message
Bears frequent the area; please keep a clean camp and be bear aware
This campground has first-come, first-served sites
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Click here for more information on the Boise National Forest
Please click here for further information about the facility and recreation opportunities in the area.
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
- 8 · 8 walk-in
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…with a table, campfire ring and grill. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…campfire ring and grill. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided throughout the…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
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, $15 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
8 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 8 mapped sitesAll 8 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 2 of the 8 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 8 of the 8 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| PICNIC POINT | 001 | walk to | 108 ft | 129 ft | $15 | |
| PICNIC POINT | 002 | walk to | 77 ft | 68 ft | $15 | |
| PICNIC POINT | 003 | walk to | 77 ft | 33 ft | $15 | |
| PICNIC POINT | 004 | walk to | 103 ft | 80 ft | $15 | |
| PICNIC POINT | 005 | walk to | 142 ft | 73 ft | 3,256 ft | $15 |
| PICNIC POINT | 006 | walk to | 86 ft | 43 ft | 3,234 ft | $15 |
| PICNIC POINT | 007 | walk to | 86 ft | 96 ft | $15 | |
| PICNIC POINT | 008 | walk to | 116 ft | 209 ft | $15 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Shoreline Campground and Group sitesBoise National Forest · 0.4 mi
ShorelineBoise National Forest · 0.4 mi
Warm LakeBoise National Forest · 0.8 miSouth Fork Salmon River CampgroundBoise National Forest · 1.5 mi
Stolle Meadows CabinBoise National Forest · 4.0 miSummit Lake CampgroundBoise National Forest · 4.3 miFrom Cascade, turn east on Warm Lake Highway. Travel approximately 26 miles along the paved road to Forest Road 489 and turn south. Continue about a half-mile past the Shoreline Campground and North Shore Lodge. The campground will be located just past the lodge, on the left side of the road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cascade, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 58°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 15°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Picnic Point (ID) 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 →