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Bear Creek Cg
Drive-up · U.S. Forest Service · ID · 43.72722, -114.90057
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →U.S. Forest Service lists this site. On most of their ground you can camp away from developed sites pretty much anywhere — so treat this as a known-good spot, not the only one allowed. The unit sets stay limits and how far off road and water you must be. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
Can I go now? — Bear Creek Cg · Sawtooth National Forest · ID
Open today Season May 1 – Oct 31. Closes after Oct 31.
U.S. Forest Service record: “May through Oct. 31” Read against the calendar on 2026-09-22; with JavaScript your browser re-checks it against today.
Nearest road on the Forest Service MVUM — Bear Creek Cg · Sawtooth National Forest · ID
No MVUM road within 1 mi of the pin; access may be a county road or unmapped.
From the Forest Service's own Motor Vehicle Use Map roads layer (EDW, Clearinghouse refresh Aug 30, 2026), straight-line from the pin to the nearest mapped segment. The nearest segment is not necessarily the way in, a maintenance level is the agency's class and not a report on today, and a road's season is the road's — it is not a campground order. What the levels mean → What an MVUM is →
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Bear Creek Cg
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 6,032 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Bear Creek CgNIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Bear Creek Cg · Sawtooth National Forest · ID
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- GGrocery8 mi
- FFuel26 mi
- +Urgent care27 mi
- @Mail27 mi
- WWater27 mi
- RxPharmacy27 mi
- LLaundry29 mi
- ShShower29 mi
- EVEV fast charger32 mi
- DDump35 mi
- MMechanic36 mi
- HHardware51 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 27-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 8 mi out, the nearest EV fast charger is a 32-mi run (and back).
Not within 60 mi: Propane. Plan those before you head up.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Bear Creek Cg
Access
Drive-up
Land
U.S. Forest Service
Elevation
6,032 ft
Ground slope
3.6% · gentle
State
ID
Coordinates
43.72722, -114.90057
Cost
Free
Nearby & resupply — around Bear Creek Cg · Sawtooth National Forest · ID (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureSouth Fork Boise River · under 0.1 mi · USGS: perennial river
- Nearest townAtlanta · ~12.4 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelFuel · ~26.5 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- GroceriesSmoky Bar Store · ~8.3 mi
- PharmacyPharmacy · ~27.0 mi
- Hospital / clinicSt Luke's Wood River Medical Center · ~28.0 mi
EV charging — from Bear Creek Cg · Sawtooth National Forest · ID — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger32.5 mi straight-line SE — Hailey, ID (at a public site) · RIVIAN_ADVENTURE · CCS · 6 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · 3 within 50 · 36 within 100 · 66 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)36.2 mi — Bellevue, ID - Tesla Supercharger, Bellevue
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO32.7 mi — ANNEX EVCS BLAINE COUNTY 1, Hailey
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)26.9 mi — Leadville Parking Lot, Ketchum, ID · Blink Network · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Also listed, not counted aboveNACS-only Level 2 — Knob Hill Inn - Tesla Destination, Sun Valley, 26.8 mi · NACS (Tesla) · hours: 24 hours daily. Open to Teslas only. · AFDC lists it “Free”
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 398508 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Bear Creek Cg · Sawtooth National Forest · ID — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletBear Creek Cg · at this camp · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletCanyon Cg · ~7.2 mi S · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletBowns Cg · ~8.4 mi S · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletBig Hole · ~9.8 mi S · USFS
Coming out here — Bear Creek Cg · Sawtooth National Forest · ID
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps South Fork Boise River as a perennial river, under 0.1 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 3.6% — gentle. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Bear Creek Cg elsewhere
Other camps near Bear Creek Cg
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Canyon Cg~7.2 mi · fee
- Bowns Cg~8.4 mi · fee
- Chemeketan Campground~11.1 mi · fee
- Power Plant Campground~11.8 mi
The unit that manages Bear Creek Cg
Stay limits, road closures and fire restrictions at Bear Creek Cg are set by Sawtooth National Forest, not by the campsite — check there before you go.
Snow, and when this opens
The nearest automatic snow station is Vienna Mine at 8,930 ft, about 6 miles away. It sits about 2,898 ft higher than this camp, so treat it as a guide rather than a reading for this spot. We do not repeat a depth here, because any number we stored would be stale by the time you read it — the station publishes today's.
How we know this — Bear Creek Cg
Open season
May through Oct. 31
Source
U.S. Forest Service recreation data
Confidence
Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.
How it was placed
Free but developed (not dispersed) - review || Water: Sawtooth National Forest's own site page for Bear Creek Transfer Camp, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/sawtooth/recreation/bear-creek-transfer-camp (read 2026-08-24; page "Last updated" April 13, 2026), "Facility and Amenity Information > Water": "Potable water is not available at this site.". Corroborated by the USFS EDW Recreation Sites layer (apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services/EDW/EDW_RecInfraRecreationSites_02/MapServer/0, re-queried live 2026-08-24 for SITE_ID 50002 / MANAGING_ORG 041405), WATER_AVAILABILITY = "No water is available". Page "Seasons of Use": "May through Oct. 31" -- that is the season of the SITE, not a statement about when the water is turned on. The parenthetical in the value is the page's own sentence, verified present on the live page at write time: "The transfer camp offers 6 campsites with picnic tables and fire rings along with corrals and mangers with loading ramps and stock water available 150 yards to the north at Bear Creek." NOTE ON THE MATCH: our lead is named "Bear Creek Cg" and the forest's page is titled "Bear Creek Transfer Camp" -- the two were joined on coordinates (0.001 mi apart), not on the name. No natural water anywhere near this site is claimed to be potable. Agency record only -- not field-verified. Nightshift fire 1680 (Idaho batch 2).
Season
Read from the agency's own season / closure text in this record (data/conditions.py) and checked against the calendar. The words we read are printed under the verdict at the top of the page.
Nearest MVUM road
US Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Map roads layer (EDW_MVUM_01, layer 1), Clearinghouse refresh Aug 30, 2026. Straight-line distance from the pin to the nearest mapped segment within 1 mi; surface type, maintenance level and open dates are the agency's own values for that segment, expanded from its codes and otherwise unedited. Nothing here says which road reaches the site.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Bear Creek Cg
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Bear Creek Cg
Finding water out here →What “dispersed” means here →Reading a forest MVUM →Power off-grid →All field notes →