Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse
3Heads up3 fires, nearest 16 mi
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 22 of the next 29 nights read 16:48 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse sets the stage for a truly relaxing getaway. Located on the breaks of Meacham Canyon in Umatilla National Forest, spectacular views of the Blue Mountains are guaranteed. The rustic bunkhouse, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, dates back to 1938. The site of the cabin was the Summit Ranger Station in 1908, when the land was part of the Wenaha National Forest. Wenaha was one of the first national forests in the country, established in 1907. It was renamed Umatilla National Forest in 1920. Keep reading
Recreation
Bird and wildlife watching is exceptional at Summit.
Facilities
The single-room cabin accommodates up to four guests. The red, wood framed cabin has two full beds and two twin beds with mattresses, a table and four chairs, and is equipped with a propane cook stove, propane lights and a propane heater. The cabin is stocked with a limited supply of pots, pans, eating utensils and cleaning supplies. A vault toilet is located a short distance from the cabin and additional guests may use the yard to pitch a tent. No water is available on-site, so guests must bring plenty of water for drinking, cooking and washing. Other items to bring include food, bedding, towels, garbage bags, dish soap and a first aid kit. It's a great idea to bring binoculars as well. Click here for more cabin details.
Natural Features
Summit Guard Station is located on a high ridge nestled in an open stand of large Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. The view to the south and west from this ridge-top setting is exceptional. Prominent points in the area include Wilbur Mountain, Spring Mountain, Sugarloaf Mountain and Green Mountain. Bird species in the region include kinglets, sparrows, chickadees and hummingbirds, while wildflowers include larkspur, lupine and orchids.
Nearby Attractions
The Whitman Route Overlook is a short drive away, boasting views of Meacham Canyon and the Hell Hole Roadless Area, as well as a look back into the history of the area. Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (509) 522-6276.
What the agency tells you
Entry to cabin is by combination lock; the door code will be on your reservation confirmation
Please contact ranger district prior to arrival for updated fire restrictions and weather conditions
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack in-pack out' facility
Everything else this campground posts · 4
No water available; bring enough for drinking, cooking and washing
No horses or livestock allowed
Guests should be aware that there is a risk of exposure to hantavirus when visiting remote cabins; click here to learn more
Don't Move Firewood: Please protect Pacific Northwest forests by preventing the spread of invasive species. Firewood can carry insects and diseases that can threaten the health of our western forests. You can make a difference by obtaining and burning your firewood near your camping destination. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…guests may use the yard to pitch a tent. No water is available on-site, so guests must bring plenty…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- Berry Picking
- Historic site
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- Wildlife viewing
- Fall color · reported 2 days ago, 15 km away
- Patchy color
Full this Saturdayread 16:48 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday, and on the one midweek night after it that the agency has released as well. read 16:48 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 16:48 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.
| AREA SUMMIT GUARD STATION BUNKHOUSE | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 600 ft | $45 |
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
Umatilla Forks CampgroundWhitman National Forest · 11 miBird Track Springs CampgroundWhitman National Forest · 13 miUmatilla Forks CampgroundUmatilla National Forest · 17 miWoodland CampgroundUmatilla National Forest · 20 mi
Woodland CampgroundUmatilla National Forest · 20 miFrom Weston, Oregon: Travel 28 miles east of Weston on Highway 204. Turn right (south) onto Forest Service Road 31. Go 9.4 miles to Ruckel Junction. Stay on Forest Service Road 31 and go 17 miles until you reach the junction with Forest Service Road 3113. Turn right onto Forest Service Road 3113 and travel about 0.8 miles to the access road to Summit Guard Station. Turn left onto the access road and follow the road to the right.
From Pendleton, Oregon: Travel Interstate 84 east for 34 miles to Exit 243 (Mt. Emily Exit). Take the exit and at the stop sign turn left. Cross the freeway on the overpass and proceed past the ramps to the end of the pavement. Forest Service Road 31 starts here. Travel Forest Service Road 31 for about 12.2 miles to the junction with Forest Service Road 3113. Turn left onto Forest Service Road 3113 and travel about 0.8 miles to the access road to the Summit Guard Station. Turn left onto the access road and follow the road to the right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Summerville, OR
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 56°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 18°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
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
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
Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse is in Oregon’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Cliff Bentz (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 moneyCliff BentzU.S. Representative · Oregon’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJeff MerkleyU.S. Senator · Oregon
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRon WydenU.S. Senator · Oregon
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 Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon
Dear Cliff Bentz, I’m a constituent in Oregon’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Summit Guard Station 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. Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Summit Guard Station 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 Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse (Umatilla National Forest, Oregon) 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 Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon
Dear Jeff Merkley, I’m a constituent in Oregon. I tried to camp at Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Summit Guard Station 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. Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Summit Guard Station 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 Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse (Umatilla National Forest, Oregon) 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 Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon
Dear Ron Wyden, I’m a constituent in Oregon. I tried to camp at Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Summit Guard Station 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. Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Summit Guard Station 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 Summit Guard Station Bunkhouse (Umatilla National Forest, Oregon) via campanac.com