Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse
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 26 of the next 26 nights read 16:37 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Spring Valley Cabin and Bunkhouse offer a peaceful retreat with spectacular views of the San Francisco Peaks, quiet solitude, wildlife viewing opportunities, and access to nearby trails. All just minutes away from the City of Flagstaff and an hour from the spectacular Grand Canyon National Park. This getaway can host up to 17 people between the cabin and adjacent bunkhouse. The facility can be accessed by vehicle; Forest Road 74 is not maintained during winter and may be closed during heavy snowfall. The distance from the winter parking area to the cabin is one mile. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety and must bring several of their own amenities. Please monitor winter road conditions here on the Forest Service's Spring Valley Cabin webpage . Keep reading
Recreation
With miles upon miles of national forest and park lands to explore, visitors have no shortage of outdoor activities from which to choose. The cabin is adjacent to the Spring Valley Trail System, which provides access to the cabin when the roads are covered in snow. Hiking, horseback riding, and mountain biking are very popular in this area, and there are plenty of trails. Kendrick Mountain Wilderness is nearby and provides several trailheads and entry points into designated wilderness. Visitors might be lucky enough to spot wildlife such as elk, mule deer, wild turkeys, javelina, coyote and numerous birds and raptors that live in the area.
Facilities
The facility is made up of two buildings, and can accomodate ten people at the main cabin and seven in the bunkhouse. The cabin has a living/dining area, a side room with a woodstove, a bedroom, a restroom with flushable toilet and shower, and a kitchen with drinking water and plenty of kitchen supplies (i.e. propane range stove, refridgerator, microwave, and dishes). The cabin can sleep up to ten people and has an arrangement of three bunk beds with twin sized mattresses and two futon couches. Electric/propane heaters are available for use. The bunkhouse offers three bunkbeds with twin size mattresses and one full-size futon couch, available to sleep up to seven people, and a small woodstove. Located outside is an enclosure for firewood, picnic tables, grills, and a vault toilet. Guests must bring their own food, bedding (sheets, pillows, blankets and/or sleeping bags), bath and kitchen towels, garbage bags, warm clothing, dish soap, and flashlights, amongst other necessities. Upon check out, the facility must be cleaned, and all food and trash removed prior to departure.
Natural Features
The structures are located at an elevation of 7,320 feet, overlooking a wide meadow and is nestled beneath mature ponderosa pines. The cabin was constructed in 1917 as the residence for rangers who worked at the guard station. The bunkhouse served as the office. It is still occasionally used as a field station for U.S. Forest Service employees. Winter brings a mix of sun with cold temperatures and occasional winter storms. Summer temperatures are relatively pleasant, but weather can very. Visitors should come prepared for changeable mountain weather, cold nights, thunderstorms and snow from fall through spring.
Nearby Attractions
Grand Canyon National Park's South Rim is a must-see attraction just over an hour away. The nearby town of Williams and the city of Flagstaff have numerous restaurants, hotels, gift shops, grocery stores and cultural attractions.
What the agency tells you
The cabin and bunkhouse are rented seperately. The Bunkhouse is required for groups made up of eleven or more people, and cannot be reserved on its own.
Fires are allowed only in the wood stove, and designated outdoor grills or fire pit. Outdoor fires are subject to Kaibab National Forest fire restrictions. Firewood is supplied during the wintertime and not during the summer.
Weather in this high elevation area spans across all four seasons of the year. Guests should check weather and road conditions prior to their visit.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Cabins are cleaned once a week. Please leave the cabin in perfect order for use by following renters.
Smoking and pets not allowed inside the cabin or bunkhouse
Discharging of firearms within a quarter-mile of the cabin or any residence is prohibited
Click here to learn more about Kaibab National Forest. Please visit the Forest Service's Spring Valley Cabin webpage for more details.
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests 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
- 22 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…firewood, picnic tables, grills, and a vault toilet. Guests must bring their own food, bedding (sheets,…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- Shower/Bath Type states a shower on all 1 of this campground's campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…toilet and shower, and a kitchen with drinking water and plenty of kitchen supplies (i.e. propane range…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Meadow
- Biking
- Cross Country Skiing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Snowshoeing
- Stargazing
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Night sky · 57th darkest of 262 in AZ
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 2 days ago, 22 km away
- Patchy color
Full this Saturdayread 16:37 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday, and on three midweek nights after it as well. 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.
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 · 13
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
| SPVC | 001 | cabin electric | 22 ft | 1.3 mi |
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
Kaibab Lake Sites and Group AreasKaibab National Forest · 12 mi
Kendrick CabinCoconino National Forest · 13 mi
Dogtown Lake Campground and GroupKaibab National Forest · 14 mi
WHITE HORSE LAKE CampgroundKaibab National Forest · 17 mi
Lockett Meadow CampgroundCoconino National Forest · 19 mi
Little Elden Springs HorsecampCoconino National Forest · 22 miFrom Flagstaff, follow Interstate 40 west for about 30 miles and take exit 178 at Parks. Proceed north one-tenth of a mile and turn left onto Old Route 66 for about a half-mile. Then turn right at the Old Parks Store onto Spring Valley Road/County Road 141 and continue to the intersection of Forest Road 76, just past milepost 8 (pavement ends just before reaching milepost 6). Look for the Spring Valley Cabin sign. Turn left on Forest Road 76, and proceed less than a mile. The cabin will be on the left.
From Williams, travel east on Interstate 40 for about 14 miles and take exit 178 at Parks. Follow the directions above to the cabin.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Parks, AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 27°F, day 64°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 11°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
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse is in Arizona’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Eli Crane (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 moneyElijah CraneU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMark KellyU.S. Senator · Arizona
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRuben GallegoU.S. Senator · Arizona
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-4521.
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 Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse, Kaibab National Forest, Arizona
Dear Elijah Crane, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse, Kaibab National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse. 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 Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse (Kaibab National Forest, Arizona) 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 Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse, Kaibab National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse, Kaibab National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse. 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 Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse (Kaibab National Forest, Arizona) 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 Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse, Kaibab National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse, Kaibab National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse. 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 Spring Valley Cabin & Bunkhouse (Kaibab National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com