Sunny Gulch Campground
1Heads up1 fire 35 mi away
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $24–$48Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 45All of them booked ahead
- Season
- May 1 – September 30Open May 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Sunny Gulch Campground sits along the shores of Salmon River in the forests of central Idaho. Keep reading
Recreation
Excellent fishing is right out your back door on the Salmon River, with rainbow trout, Westslope cutthroat trout and occasional hybrid cutbows and bull trout available. Sunny Gulch lies in the heart of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. A myriad of excellent hiking and biking opportunities are available, and an estimated 750 miles of trails crisscross the valley and surrounding mountains.
Facilities
Sunny Gulch offers several campsites, a handful of which are close to a large picnic shelter. These sites and the shelter are perfect for a family reunion, wedding or other special event. The shelter contains a grill, utility tables, a dutch oven cooking surface and eight picnic tables. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking spurs are paved.
Natural Features
The campground offers spectacular views of the Sawtooth Mountains. Summer wildflowers are plentiful and lodgepole pines provide partial shade. Temperatures are cool with an average summer high of 78 degrees and a low of 40 degrees.
Nearby Attractions
The Alpine Way Trail begins less than a mile from the campground, and the Idaho Centennial Trail passes nearby. Redfish and Stanley Lakes are nearby with great boating, water skiing, canoeing, kayaking and fishing. Numerous additional sparkling lakes and streams dot the area. Popular area events include an Arts and Crafts Fair in July, and Wagon Days, Salmon Festival, Quilt Fair and Fireman's Ball in September.
What the agency tells you
Standard Single Family sites: Recreation Use Fee allows ONE camping unit ONLY. Double & Group sites: refer to Specific Site # for capacity limits.
Late Arrivals: campers are not considered a "no-show" until 24 hours after arrival date check in time. Our policy is that your site will not be released before that.
FIRST COME FIRST SERVE sites must be booked in person. DO NOT call to determine availability, as they are only available on-site.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Extra Vehicles: Your camp fee includes the first vehicle only in a single site and the first 2 vehicles in a double site. All other vehicles will be charged 50% of the posted camp fee at the time of check-in and cannot be paid for in advance. Coordinate with the host for payment and where to park.
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.
Idaho Off-road Vehicle Safety Message
Opening and closing dates are weather permitting, please call 928-537-8888 for more information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 45
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- 44
- Pets
- Allowed at 1 of 45 sites
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…cooking surface and eight picnic tables. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…eight picnic tables. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking spurs are paved.…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 197th darkest of 523 in ID
- Bortle 2
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 rates for this season, $24–$48 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
46 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 11 mapped sitesAll 46 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 11 of the 46 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 45 of the 46 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 001 | standard nonelectric | $24–$48 | |||||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 002 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 180 ft | 626 ft | 178 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 003 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 180 ft | 714 ft | 240 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 004 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 207 ft | 859 ft | 106 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 005 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 006 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 007 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 008 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 009 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 010 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 011 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 012 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 013 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 014 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 015 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 016 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 017 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 018 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 019 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 020 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 021 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 022 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 023 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 112 ft | 710 ft | 107 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 024 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 156 ft | 679 ft | 187 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 025 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 147 ft | 479 ft | 358 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 026 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 147 ft | 452 ft | 364 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 027 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 170 ft | 485 ft | 108 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 028 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 112 ft | 654 ft | 217 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 029 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 125 ft | 706 ft | 46 ft | $24–$48 |
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 030 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 031 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 032 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 033 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 034 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 035 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 036 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 037 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 038 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 039 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 040 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 041 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 042 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 043 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 044 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | 045 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | $24–$48 | |||
| SUNNY GULCH CAMPGROUND | A01 - DAY USE Ramada | day use | yes | 431 ft | 74 ft | 111 ft | $125 |
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.
25 of 46 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Glacier View CampgroundSawtooth National Recreation Area · 2.0 mi
Redfish CabinSawtooth National Recreation Area · 2.3 miFrom Stanley, Idaho, take Highway 75 south approximately 3 miles. Campground is on the north side of the road, between the highway and the Salmon River.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Stanley, ID
Typical weather
Typical May night 30°F, day 60°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 30°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 moreOutside the published season
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
Sunny Gulch Campground is in Idaho’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Mike Simpson (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →