Williams Lake Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 18All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Williams Lake Campground offers 9 campsites for both RV and tent camping. Potable water, vault toilets, picnic tables, fire rings, and ample shade are available at all sites. RVs and trailers are not recommended on the lower loop past Site 6. Keep reading
Recreation
Campground is 2 miles from Forest Service boat dock and Williams Lake access area. Williams Lake is popular with anglers and offers both motorized and non-motorized recreation opportunities. The surrounding area offers a multitude of recreation opportunities including motorized and non-motorized trails, hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing.
Facilities
The campground offers single-family campsites for both RV and tent camping. Each site is equipped with accessible picnic tables and campfire rings with grills. Potable water and vault toilets are provided. No hookups are available at this location.
Natural Features
The campsites do not offer views of Williams Lake, but they are nestled among Douglas-fir trees that provide ample shade and wildlife habitat. Lake access is located 2 miles away at the Forest Service boat dock and access area.
Nearby Attractions
Williams Lake Shoup Bridge Campground Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (208) 756-5400.
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.
Road to campground not maintained during winter months. Call Salmon Field Office (208-756-5400) for more information on access to campground.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
No electric, water or sewer hookups at this campground.
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
- 18 · 2 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…both RV and tent camping. Potable water, vault toilets, picnic tables, fire rings, and ample shade are…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…campsites for both RV and tent camping. Potable water, vault toilets, picnic tables, fire rings, and…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Birding
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Motor Boat
- Non-Motorized Boating
- Off Highway Vehicle Trails
- Off Road Vehicle Trails
- Wildlife viewing
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:34 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
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.
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 15:34 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
18 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 9 mapped sitesAll 18 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. 18 of the 18 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.
| Site #1 | standard nonelectric | 378 ft | 2,507 ft | $15 |
| Site #1 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 2,507 ft | $2 | |
| Site #2 | standard nonelectric | 124 ft | 2,327 ft | $15 |
| Site #2 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 2,327 ft | $2 | |
| Site #3 | standard nonelectric | 124 ft | 2,307 ft | $15 |
| Site #3 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 2,307 ft | $2 | |
| Site #4 | group standard nonelectric | 88 ft | 2,156 ft | $30 |
| Site #4 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 2,156 ft | $2 | |
| Site #5 | standard nonelectric | 88 ft | 2,068 ft | $15 |
| Site #5 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 2,068 ft | $2 | |
| Site #6 | standard nonelectric | 216 ft | 1,891 ft | $15 |
| Site #6 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 1,891 ft | $2 | |
| Site #7 | group standard nonelectric | 297 ft | 1,411 ft | $30 |
| Site #7 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 1,411 ft | $2 | |
| Site #8 | standard nonelectric | 168 ft | 1,134 ft | $15 |
| Site #8 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 1,134 ft | $2 | |
| Site #9 | standard nonelectric | 168 ft | 982 ft | $15 |
| Site #9 Extra Vehicle | type not stated | 982 ft | $2 |
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
Where it is
Williams Lake CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 1.2 miCougar Point CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 6.0 mi
Shoup Bridge CampgroundSalmon Field Office · 6.2 miIron Lake CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 14 miDeep Creek CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 14 miWallace Lake CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 16 miTake Highway 93 South of Salmon, ID for 5 miles. Turn right on Williams Creek Road and cross Shoup Bridge. Continue on Williams Creek Road for 4 miles. Turn left on Williams Lake Road and continue for 10 miles. Follow signs for campground and Forest Service boat ramp.
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 25°F, day 60°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 6°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
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
Williams Lake 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 →