Ponderosa
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 1110 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
This campground is located adjacent to the Secesh River and offers beautiful river views. There are eleven camp sites. This location is available on a first-come, first-served basis only. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site. Once on-site, you may be able to pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app, and the Scan and Pay feature. If this option is available, you will need to first download the free Recreation.gov mobile app ht tps://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as some remote areas have limited or no cellular service. Keep reading
Recreation
There is fishing and trail access.
Facilities
There are eleven camp sites, drinking water, fire-pits, tables, toilets, pack in/pack out. Please pack out your own trash. No hook-ups.
Nearby Attractions
The South Fork of the Salmon River is a highly popular area of the Forest and is one of the earlier areas to be snow-free in the spring. Several campgrounds and dispersed campsites can be found along the South Fork Road (FS Rd #674). The southern-most 7 miles of the South Fork Road are on the Boise National Forest.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 11
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Facilities There are eleven camp sites, drinking water, fire-pits, tables, toilets, pack in/pack out.…”
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:42 UTC
recreation.gov lists 10 of the 11 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
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.
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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:42 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
11 sites · the site map
All 11 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. 11 of the 11 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Ponderosa | 01 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Ponderosa | 02 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Ponderosa | 03 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Ponderosa | 04 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Ponderosa | 05 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Ponderosa | 06 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Ponderosa | 07 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Ponderosa | 08 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Ponderosa | 09 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Ponderosa | 10 | standard nonelectric | $10 | |
| Scan and Pay | Standard | type not stated | 397 ft | $10 |
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
Secesh CampgroundPayette National Forest · 0.2 miIndian Point Camping AreaPayette National Forest · 4.0 mi
Deadman Bar Camping AreaPayette National Forest · 8.3 mi
Buckhorn BarPayette National Forest · 8.7 mi
ChinookPayette National Forest · 11 mi
Shiefer CampgroundPayette National Forest · 12 miFrom McCall, go 31 miles northeast on Lick Creek Road #48.
The South Fork corridor is about 30 miles from Cascade along the Warm Lake Highway. Usually by July, Lick Creek Pass (Road #48) is snow-free, providing a faster access from McCall (35 miles) to the South Fork corridor. Please follow posted speed limits and drive carefully, the South Fork Road is a paved, narrow, one-lane road with two-way traffic and many blind corners.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Yellow Pine, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 29°F, day 56°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 14°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
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
Ponderosa 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 →