Cottonwood CJ Strike Reservoir Idaho Power

I've been to this Cottonwood Campground at CJ Strike quite a few times now. It is $8/night during the summer and $4/night in the winters. Each site has a firepit and picnic table. I like some of the sites at the Cottonwood site because they are very close to a boat ramp. If you have a smaller boat, depending on the site you have, you can launch a small boat from your campground! Great fishing, spring through fall. In the winter this area freezes over. All in all, a great campsite with great fishing!

Great Getaway from the City for Some Great Fishing!

We camped just outside of Cottonwood Campground. There is an access road to the West that follows the shoreline. Beautiful area and it was great to camp right on the water. The fishing was also good with lots of smallmouth in the lake. Be sure to watch out for the ticks though!

Great Area

Campground was clean and well maintained. Unfortunately we went on the hottest day of the year and got cooked. The car said it was 111F! No real trees to speak of for shade so we spent the entire day in the water.  It cooled off at night but got a bit gusty.

We had to cut our trip a day early but hope to go back under better circumstances!

Nice but it was H-O-T!

A large campground geared toward boating with a great location right on the reservoir. Not a lot of shade trees but a beautiful high desert setting.

On the Reservoir

This campground has its pros and cons, depending on what kind of camping you like to do. 

If you have a camp trailer, toy hauler or RV, this campground is definitely more designed for that type of crowd. When my wife and I visited during Labor Day weekend this year, we were the ONLY tent campers and we were downright miserable.  All sites are gravel driveways so great for trailer campers, not great for tents. But each site does have a picnic table and fire pit with grate. 

For starters, there’s very little shade. There are trees in a number of the reservable spots and the shade in those spots is pretty good throughout the day. But if you reserve a spot that is not near shade, you will cook. If you want/need shade, look at site #4, this one pretty much has shade the whole day. 

As for closeness to your neighbors, it depends on which site you reserved. The ones closest to the water felt shoulder to shoulder but you do have immediate water access. Those furthest from the water were more spread out and didn’t feel like you were on top of each other. 

There is potable water in this campground and it tastes good enough to drink. There are quite a few spigots throughout. However, watch out for bugs!  We didn’t have much problems with mosquitoes but the flies were EVERYWHERE!  I’m not sure if we just happened to be there during a bad weekend but we could not escape them in two and half days. No matter how many citronella candles we lit or how much bug spray we put on, the flies were beyond annoying. Had we been able to light campfires, the bugs might not have been as bad but because of wildfire threat, campfires were prohibited. 

The restrooms were ok. Clean for the most part but nothing exiting. Vault toilets.  There are also dumpsters for trash. 

As for cell service, it was spotty at best, depending on your carrier. We are on T-Mobile and we had one bar, sometimes two but more often than not, we had no service. But if you have Verizon or AT&amp;T, you will probably have better luck. 

The camp host does a few laps around the campground but we didn’t speak to them. 

If you bring dogs, make sure they are on their leash at all times. We brought our dogs and made sure they were leashed and there are signs EVERYWHERE saying “leash your dogs” but some people with other dogs didn’t think that rule applied to them. 

As for things to do, this campground is right on the Bruneau arm of CJ Strike so having a boat is basically a necessity. Whether that’s water skiing, wakeboarding, fishing or any other type of watersports. 

However, if you DO NOT have a boat, are not into water sports and not into fishing, skip this campground. There are no hiking trails or really anything else to do. There is NO swimming area at this campground. This is basically a parking spot close to the water. There is a marina and boat trailer parking separate from the sites, so you have plenty of room if you are bringing a boat and RV. Near the marina is a fishing dock with pole holders that’s pretty nice as well. But if you come here with kids and you don’t have a boat, be prepared for a lot of “I’m bored!”  

Bird watchers will have a good variety of birds to look at. We saw falcons, Kildare and a few cranes. But for those hoping for a free airshow, courtesy of Mountain Home AFB, you are out of luck. I was hoping that being directly south of the AFB, we would see/hear some of the jets fly over but we didn’t see or hear one the entire weekend we were here. That’s not the fault of the campground though but it would have been nice to have SOMETHING to look at instead of just cooking in the sun. 

Essentially great for boaters and fishing. Literally nothing else. 
