Squirrel Meadows Cabin
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 28 of the next 30 nights read 16:32 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
Squirrel Meadows Cabin is located 24 miles east of Ashton, Idaho, just off the Ashton-Flagg Ranch Road. The current cabin was built in 1934, but the site has been used for administrative purposes since 1907. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Only one other cabin in Wyoming was constructed with the same building plan. The 2-room cabin is made of lodgepole pine and features a wood shingled roof. Guests can drive to the cabin from mid-May through mid-November, although about 10 miles of the trip are on gravel roads. Snowmobiles and cross-country skis are required to access the cabin from approximately early December through mid-May. The trek from the nearest available parking at the snowmobile trailhead to the cabin is 10 miles. Keep reading
Recreation
The cabin provides access to a variety of year-round recreational activities, including horseback riding, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Berry picking is available in late summer. Some of the other activities located within a few miles include off-road vehicle and motorcycle riding, snowmobiling, hiking and mountain biking. Game and game bird hunting is a popular pastime in season.
Facilities
This cabin sleeps six and provides bunkbeds, mattresses, a wood stove for cooking, table and chairs, and firewood. A hand pump, vault toilet, picnic table and horse corrals are located outside. Electricity is not provided. Guests may wish to bring battery or propane-powered lighting. Bedding, matches, and emergency items like a first aid kit are not provided. Trash bags are needed to pack out garbage.
Natural Features
Squirrel Meadows Cabin is situated at 6,500 feet on the Yellowstone Plateau of southwest Wyoming. The cabin sits in a meadow surrounded by pine trees. Guests can enjoy views of the distant mountains. Wildlife in the area includes black bear, wolf, elk, moose, mule deer, and grizzly bear. Nearby Attractions
What the agency tells you
Pick up the cabin key at the Ashton Ranger Station, Monday - Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; to make arrangements for after hours or weekend pickup, call (208) 652-7442 during regular business hours
This cabin is located in grizzly/black bear country. All food and coolers must be stored according to the Caribou Targhee National Forest Food Storage Order #04-15-23-217
Please leave the cabin clean for the next occupant.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
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.
This is a pack-it-in/pack-it-out facility, please take all trash with you when leaving the cabin.
Guests should be aware that there is a risk of exposure to hantavirus when visiting remote cabins; click here to learn more.
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
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…table and chairs, and firewood. A hand pump, vault toilet, picnic table and horse corrals are…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Meadow
- Birding
- Horse Camping
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- Stargazing
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 116th darkest of 248 in WY
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 38 km away
- Past peak
Full this Saturdayread 16:32 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:32 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 · 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 16:32 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.
| SQUIRREL MEADOWS CABIN (ID) | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 40 ft | 202 ft | $40 |
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
Cave Falls CampgroundTarghee National Forest · 4.6 mi
Warm RiverTarghee National Forest · 15 mi
Warm River CabinTarghee National Forest · 15 mi
Grandview Campground (Idaho)Targhee National Forest · 16 mi
Lizard Creek CampgroundGrand Teton National Park · 17 miSheffield CampgroundJohn D. Rockefeller, Jr., Memorial Parkway · 18 miFrom Ashton, ID, take Highway 47 a half-mile to Highway 32 and turn right (south). Travel 1 mile to Ashton-Flagg Ranch Road (#261). Turn left (east) and travel 22 miles to Road #032. Turn right (south) and go a half-mile 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 Warm River, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 21°F, day 51°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 1°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Squirrel Meadows Cabin is in Wyoming’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Harriet Hageman (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 moneyHarriet M. HagemanU.S. Representative · Wyoming, at-large
- Your senator, on the same appropriationCynthia M. LummisU.S. Senator · Wyoming
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn BarrassoU.S. Senator · Wyoming
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 Squirrel Meadows Cabin, Targhee National Forest, Wyoming
Dear Harriet M. Hageman, I’m a constituent in Wyoming, at-large. I tried to camp at Squirrel Meadows Cabin, Targhee National Forest, Wyoming, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Squirrel Meadows Cabin 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. Squirrel Meadows Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Squirrel Meadows Cabin. 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 Squirrel Meadows Cabin (Targhee National Forest, Wyoming) 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 Squirrel Meadows Cabin, Targhee National Forest, Wyoming
Dear Cynthia M. Lummis, I’m a constituent in Wyoming. I tried to camp at Squirrel Meadows Cabin, Targhee National Forest, Wyoming, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Squirrel Meadows Cabin 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. Squirrel Meadows Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Squirrel Meadows Cabin. 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 Squirrel Meadows Cabin (Targhee National Forest, Wyoming) 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 Squirrel Meadows Cabin, Targhee National Forest, Wyoming
Dear John Barrasso, I’m a constituent in Wyoming. I tried to camp at Squirrel Meadows Cabin, Targhee National Forest, Wyoming, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Squirrel Meadows Cabin 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. Squirrel Meadows Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Squirrel Meadows Cabin. 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 Squirrel Meadows Cabin (Targhee National Forest, Wyoming) via campanac.com