Tower Rock Campground
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 2 of the next 30 nights read 14:22 UTC
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 12All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Lewis & Clark Expedition camped at the Tower Rock site, along the main Salmon River. Today, the site offers prime river access for floaters and steelhead and trout anglers. Camping and picnic sites are also available, and the area makes a great stopping point for scenic drivers. Keep reading
Recreation
The area surrounding the campground offers a multitude of recreation opportunities including motorized and non-motorized trails, hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing. Rafters and anglers often use the boat ramp to access the Salmon River.
Facilities
The campground offers single-family campsites for both RV and designated tent-only camping. Each site is equipped with accessible picnic tables and campfire rings with grills. Vault toilets, fishing platforms, picnic shelter, and boat ramp with access to the Salmon River are provided. No hookups are available at this location.
Natural Features
William Clark described the rock formation above the campground, known today as Tower Rock, as a “Clift of dark brown flint”. The Precambrian quartzite is some of the oldest rock in Idaho and can be found in the outcrops between the campground and North Fork, ID. At the nearby Tower Pirimids Day Use Area "hoodoo" type sandstone, gravel, and capstone formation can be seen near another Corps of Discovery campsite. Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (208) 756-5400.
Nearby Attractions
Salmon River Tower Pirimids Day Use Area Morgan Bar Campground Charges & Cancellations No changes/cancellations/refunds are allowed as all fees are paid either on-site or through the Recreation.gov Scan & Pay App.
What the agency tells you
The campground has first-come, first-served sites.
Be bear aware; keep all food out of sight in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from area after eating.
No electric, water, or sewer hookups at this campground.
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Livestock and firearms prohibited in campground.
Don't Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Moving firewood is illegal in some states. Visit dontmovefirewood.org to learn more.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 12 · 2 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…tables and campfire rings with grills. Vault toilets, fishing platforms, picnic shelter, and boat ramp…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Birding
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Non-Motorized Boating
- Off Highway Vehicle Trails
- Rafting
- Whitewater rafting
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 14:22 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 15
What you actually pay
“Campsite nightly rates are $5/site and $2 per additional vehicle.” · the Bureau of Land Management’s own fee record
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $15 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.
“No changes/cancellations/refunds are allowed as all fees are paid either on-site or through the Recreation.gov Scan & Pay App.” · this campground’s own terms
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 · 7
recreation.gov availability, read 14:22 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
12 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 6 mapped sitesAll 12 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 12 of the 12 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. 12 of the 12 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Site #1 | standard nonelectric | 100 ft | 250 ft | 178 ft | $15 |
| Site #1 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 250 ft | 178 ft | $2 | |
| Site #2 | standard nonelectric | 82 ft | 103 ft | 170 ft | $15 |
| Site #2 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 103 ft | 170 ft | $2 | |
| Site #3 | standard nonelectric | 69 ft | 150 ft | 201 ft | $15 |
| Site #3 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 150 ft | 201 ft | $2 | |
| Site #4 | standard nonelectric | 69 ft | 82 ft | 242 ft | $15 |
| Site #4 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 82 ft | 242 ft | $2 | |
| Site #5 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 100 ft | 379 ft | $2 | |
| Site #6 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 158 ft | 374 ft | $2 | |
| Tent Site #5 | tent only nonelectric | 59 ft | 100 ft | 379 ft | $15 |
| Tent Site #6 | tent only nonelectric | 59 ft | 158 ft | 374 ft | $15 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Morgan Bar CampgroundSalmon Field Office · 4.1 miWallace Lake CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 6.7 mi
Twin Lakes Cabin (MT)Beaverhead National Forest · 13 mi
Shoup Bridge CampgroundSalmon Field Office · 15 mi
Miner Lake CampgroundBeaverhead National Forest · 16 miCougar Point CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 17 miTake Highway 93 North of Salmon, ID for 10 miles. Campground will be on the left 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 Salmon, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 58°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
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
Tower Rock 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 →
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 moneyMichael K. SimpsonU.S. Representative · Idaho’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJames E. RischU.S. Senator · Idaho
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMike CrapoU.S. Senator · Idaho
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 Tower Rock Campground, Salmon Field Office, Idaho
Dear Michael K. Simpson, I’m a constituent in Idaho’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Tower Rock Campground, Salmon Field Office, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Tower Rock Campground 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. Tower Rock Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Tower Rock Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management 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 Tower Rock Campground (Salmon Field Office, Idaho) 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 Tower Rock Campground, Salmon Field Office, Idaho
Dear James E. Risch, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Tower Rock Campground, Salmon Field Office, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Tower Rock Campground 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. Tower Rock Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Tower Rock Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management 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 Tower Rock Campground (Salmon Field Office, Idaho) 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 Tower Rock Campground, Salmon Field Office, Idaho
Dear Mike Crapo, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Tower Rock Campground, Salmon Field Office, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Tower Rock Campground 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. Tower Rock Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Tower Rock Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management 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 Tower Rock Campground (Salmon Field Office, Idaho) via campanac.com