Yellowjacket Guard Station
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 13 of the next 15 nights read 15:15 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Yellowjacket Guard Station is a historic Forest Service Ranger Station and Work Center. Originally constructed in 1925 and remodeled in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the structure is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Keep reading
Recreation
Hikers, horseback riders, mountain bikers and off-road enthusiasts will find many trails in the surrounding area. Hunting is also a popular activity. Click here for an Idaho OHV safety message Facilities The spacious guard station can sleep a maximum of three people in two bedrooms, with one full bed and one single bed. No linens or bedding are provided. The living room contains a couch, wood stove, table and chairs. The small kitchen is equipped with a propane range/oven, a propane refrigerator and sink, but no running water. Guests must bring their own drinking water, as well as dishes, utensils and cookware. The guard station is eqiuped with propane lights and an outhouse toilet that is located outside up a small hill.
Natural Features
The guard station sits in the Yellowjacket Mountains within the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho. The sizable front porch awards views of the scenic mountain meadow surrounding the station. A dense conifer forest covers the mountains and a few aspens dot the landscape. Beagle Creek flows nearby.
Nearby Attractions
Bighorn Crags, Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area and Panther Creek.
What the agency tells you
No walk-ins allowed; reservations must be made via this National Recreation Reservation Service website
Water is not available at the facility; guests will need to bring their own
Bring garbage bags; this is a pack it in, pack it out facility
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Hay brought in for horses must be certified weed-free
The guard station remains locked; the combination code for the back door can be found in the reservation confirmation letter
Fire restrictions may be in effect, prompting possible closures
Due to the remoteness of this rental and budget/personnel constraints, the Forest Service cannot guarantee all services and amenities including a supply of firewood
Guests should be aware of the risk of exposure to hantavirus when visiting remote cabins; click here to learn more
Click here for more information on the Salmon-Challis National Forest
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- “The guard station is eqiuped with propane lights and an outhouse toilet that is located outside up a small hill.”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “The small kitchen is equipped with a propane range/oven, a propane refrigerator and sink, but no running water.”
- Stay limit
- 16 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek, Meadow
- Auto Touring
- Backpacking
- Biking
- Diving
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- Off Highway Vehicle Trails
- Off Road Vehicle Trails
- Ranger Station
- Wilderness access
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 15:15 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Wed, Oct 21. read 15:15 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 15:15 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.
| YELLOWJACKET GUARD STATION | 001 | cabin nonelectric | under 10 ft | $75 |
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 Salmon, Idaho, take Highway 93 south 5 miles, to a right turn at Shoup Bridge onto Forest Road 021 and travel 44.5 miles to Cobalt Work Center facility on Panther Creek Road 055. Continue 8 miles south on Panther Creek Road, where you will come to Porphury Creek turnoff to the right, heading west. Continue approximately 11 miles along Porphury Creek Road/Forest Road 112 to Yellowjacket Guard Station.
From Challis, Idaho, take Highway 93 north 8 miles, to a left turn on Morgan Creek Rd. Travel 6 miles and take a slight right onto Forest Road 055/ Morgan Creek Rd. Continue 26.7 miles and take a left on Porphury Creek/ Forest Road 112. Continue approximately 11 miles along Porphury Creek Road/Forest Road 112 to Yellowjacket Guard Station.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Salmon, ID
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
Yellowjacket Guard Station 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 Yellowjacket Guard Station, Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area, Idaho
Dear Michael K. Simpson, I’m a constituent in Idaho’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Yellowjacket Guard Station, Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Yellowjacket Guard Station 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. Yellowjacket Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Yellowjacket Guard Station. 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 Yellowjacket Guard Station (Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area, 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 Yellowjacket Guard Station, Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area, Idaho
Dear James E. Risch, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Yellowjacket Guard Station, Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Yellowjacket Guard Station 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. Yellowjacket Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Yellowjacket Guard Station. 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 Yellowjacket Guard Station (Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area, 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 Yellowjacket Guard Station, Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area, Idaho
Dear Mike Crapo, I’m a constituent in Idaho. I tried to camp at Yellowjacket Guard Station, Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area, Idaho, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Yellowjacket Guard Station 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. Yellowjacket Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Yellowjacket Guard Station. 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 Yellowjacket Guard Station (Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area, Idaho) via campanac.com