Shadowy St. Joe Campground
1Heads up1 fire 40 mi away
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $20From, per site
- Sites
- 14All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
The Shadowy St. Joe Campground (CG) is located 10.6 miles from St. Maries Idaho up the St. Joe River on Forest Highway 50. It is at 2100 feet elevation and on a slack water section of the river. The campground includes convenient paved roadways and camping spurs, 13 camping units and one host site. During peak season, 7 sites will be available for reservations. Keep reading
Recreation
The docks and boat ramp at Shadowy St. Joe CG allows for river access, fishing and swimming. Motorized boats can continue up the river to St. Joe City. The grassy landscape allows for relaxation in a peaceful setting.
Facilities
Day and overnight use. 14 fully accessible campsites with electrical hookups, picnic tables, fire rings, and vault toilets. Refuse receptacle provided, ample parking, convenient trailer space, potable piped water, boat launch, and a group picnic shelter. The day use picnic shelter has tables that can seat up to 40 people. The campground is 10.6 miles from a full service community of St. Maries (population 3000) where a hospital, gas, food and services can be found.
Natural Features
Camp sites are located in open, grassy areas with some fruit and ornamental shade trees. There is no beach but there are docks and a boat launch providing access to the river. The surrounding areas include private lands with open grassy areas. Herds of elk are often seen along the lower sections of the river.
Nearby Attractions
The St. Joe River is well known as a fishing destination. Thirty miles further up the river is the town of Avery where the St. Joe River becomes a designated Wild and Scenic River. The gateway town of Avery Idaho has a renovated railroad depot with a museum, post office and a railroad car from the historic Route of the Hiawatha, 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. The upper river provides white water rafting in the spring and the lower river provides rafting, drift boating, canoeing and inner tubing. At times in the spring, mountain goats can be seen along the river upriver from Avery.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 14
- Hookups
- 13 electric
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…hookups, picnic tables, fire rings, and vault toilets. Refuse receptacle provided, ample parking,…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, 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 · 14
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $20 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
15 records
All 15 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 13 of the 15 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| A | 01 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 02 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 03 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 04 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 05 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 06 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 07 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 08 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 09 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 10 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 11 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 12 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 13 | type not stated | |
| A | 14 | standard electric | $20 |
| A | 15 | day use | $35 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Huckleberry CampgroundCoeur D'Alene Field Office · 15 miCamp 3 CampgroundSt. Joe National Forest · 19 miCedar Creek CampgroundSt. Joe National Forest · 20 mi
Bumblebee CampgroundCoeur d'Alene National Forest · 22 mi
Bald Mountain Lookout (Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, ID)St. Joe National Forest · 22 miFrom Saint Maries, take Highway 3 north. After 1/2 mile, turn right on Saint Joe River Road and continue for 10.6 miles. Turn right into campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for St. Maries, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 36°F, day 59°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 24°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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Shadowy St. Joe 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 →