U.S. Forest Service · Anadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · ID
Yellowjacket Lake Campground
The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
7,960 ftElevation
243 ftWater · Yellowjacket Lake
31.6 miSW of Salmon, ID
40%Tree cover
Bortle 1Night sky · 10th darkest of 523 in ID
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
8000-foot elevation. 7 campsites on Yellowjacket Lake, near the border of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Sugarloaf Rock provides a fascinating and stunning backdrop for the lake. Trails from the campground go throughout the Yellowjacket Mountains and into the wilderness. Nearby trailside attractions are Hoodoo Meadows, McEleny Peak, and Yellowjacket Creek. Most area trails, except those in the wilderness, are open to multiple use. Fishing in the lake or in Yellowjacket Creek. Carry-down access for non-motorized boats to the lake. FR 113 is narrow with few turnouts. Keep reading
Not recommended for long RVs or cars with trailers. Travel is slow, passing can be difficult, and backing may be necessary. The nearby Yellowjacket Guard Station is accessed from FR 112 and is a reservable rental cabin. There is a corral for horses, a group fire ring, the Beagle Creek Trail, a woodstove for heat, and a gas cook stove. For more information or to reserve the Guard Station please visit Recreation.gov and search Yellowjacket Guard Station.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Meadow
Source: Stated in the agency description
Phone before you drive
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 17, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Every line of the receipt · 3
What you actually pay
The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Also near hereBighorn Crags CampgroundAnadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · 2.8 mi
Yellowjacket Guard StationAnadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · 6.0 miMcdonald Flat CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 13 miEbenezer CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 17 miDeep Creek CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 17 miIron Lake CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 21 mi
Yellowjacket Guard StationAnadromous Spawning Area Anadromous Spawning Area · 6.0 miMcdonald Flat CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 13 miEbenezer CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 17 miDeep Creek CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 17 miIron Lake CampgroundSalmon National Forest · 21 miSource: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
This Afternoon52°Mostly Sunny
Tonight34°Mostly Cloudy
Sunday50°Mostly Sunny
Sunday Night35°Partly Cloudy
NWS forecast for Salmon, ID
Source: National Weather Service, MSO forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
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.
Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026
Who answers for this land
Yellowjacket 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 →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.