Walker Cabin
1Heads up1 fire 36 mi away
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 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:48 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Walker Cabin is nestled among trees just off Crooked River Road #233, which leads into the Gospel-Hump Wilderness Area, in the Nez Perce National Forest. The cabin was originally built around 1930 as a summer home. Jerry and Helen Walker purchased the cabin in 1967, then donated it to the U.S. Forest Service in the 1980s. It is now available for public recreational use. The cabin must be reserved in advanced; there are no walk-ups. Keep reading
Recreation
Crooked River is a popular area for many recreational opportunities, including hiking, trout fishing, hunting, snowmobiling and cross-country skiing. A nice hiking trail is located behind the cabin. Nearby trails lead to the Orogrande Summit, Buffalo Hump and Gospel Hump. Snowshoes may be required on the trails in winter. There are several lakes within a 3-mile radius that are easily accessible by foot or off-road vehicle.
Facilities
The rustic cabin has two bedrooms with two single beds each, a living room with a wood insert in the fireplace, several chairs, a table, a broom and a kitchen with a wood cook stove. A vault toilet is located in a separate building. Guests can find firewood in a shed behind the cabin. Running water and electricity are not available. Guests should bring their own water supply and garbage bags to pack out their trash. Cookware, kitchen utensils, bedding and blankets are not provided. A lantern or flashlight and extra batteries are recommended ( click here for more details about this cabin ).
Natural Features
Walker Cabin sits at an elevation of 4,500 feet near the northern part of Gospel-Hump Wilderness, an area that is moist and densely forested. Big game species like elk, mule and whitetail deer, black bear, cougar, moose, mountain goat and mountain sheep live within the Wilderness. Chukar, grouse, squirrels and songbirds make their home here as well.
Nearby Attractions
The cabin is less than a mile from Orogrande, a historic mining site that is now a ghost town. The closest town, Elk City, Idaho, is a remote community with limited facilities that include a grocery store, restaurant, bar, laundromat, convenience store and gas stations.
What the agency tells you
This cabin is available by advanced reservation only; no walk-ups.
No cellphone service is available in this area
Please call the district office at (208) 842-2245 prior to arrival to confirm lock combination
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Click here for more information about Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests
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
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…and a kitchen with a wood cook stove. A vault toilet is located in a separate building. Guests can find…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…are not available. Guests should bring their own water supply and garbage bags to pack out their trash.…”
- Firewood
- Sold here
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:48 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Tue, Oct 20. 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.
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.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| AREA WALKER CABIN | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 238 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
From State Highway 14, turn south on Crooked River Road #233 and proceed approximately 8 miles to the cabin on the right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Elk City, ID
Typical weather
Typical October night 28°F, day 58°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 14°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
Walker Cabin is in Idaho’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Russ Fulcher (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 moneyRuss FulcherU.S. Representative · Idaho’s 1st 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 Walker Cabin, Nezperce National Forest, Idaho
Dear Russ Fulcher, I’m a constituent in Idaho’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Walker Cabin, Nezperce National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Walker 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Walker Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Walker 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 Walker Cabin (Nezperce National Forest, 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 Walker Cabin, Nezperce National Forest, Idaho
Dear James E. Risch, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Walker Cabin, Nezperce National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Walker 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Walker Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Walker 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 Walker Cabin (Nezperce National Forest, 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 Walker Cabin, Nezperce National Forest, Idaho
Dear Mike Crapo, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Walker Cabin, Nezperce National Forest, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Walker 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Walker Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Walker 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 Walker Cabin (Nezperce National Forest, Idaho) via campanac.com