Best Dispersed Camping near Menan, ID

I have not personally spent the night camping here, but I do work for the Forest Service and wanted to give more information about the Darby Canyon dispersed camping sites. I also had a friend stay here for three nights last September and they had a good time. There are about 10~ sites (I will check and edit when I can) all along the canyon road, some are just right off road and others require a short drive down beaten paths to find the sites. All of these sites (except 2 or so very close to the road) are past the cattle guard. Depending on the time of year, many of these sites may not be accessible. Snow typically stays in the canyon until mid-June and starts collecting in October. The area may also be buggy at the height of the summer (July 2024 had been atrocious). There is limited cell service down most of the road and it completely disappears the closer to the Wind Cave trailhead you get. This area has a 14 day stay limit, meaning that once 14 days (13 nights) have been reached you must move at least 5 miles away to continue camping on forest service land and cannot return to this canyon to camp for 30 days. This is in a bear food storage enforced area and any bear attractants (food, pet food, soaps, sunscreen, etc.) are required to be stored properly in a locked hard sided vehicle or other bear resistant containers. Fires are allowed but must be put out dead (cold to the touch) before leaving a campsite. This canyon is regularly patrolled by Forest Service staff and ranger law enforcement officers, especially on the weekends, to keep up with the food storage and fires out dead orders. Hope this helps weary travelers that are deterred by low-rated reviews.

Stayed at the trailhead parking lot boondocking (No toilets, no water, no electric).  Fairly level area with a fire ring, picnic tables under a shelter, metal charcoal grill and easy access to the lava field (Hells Half Acre) hiking trails.    Access from US 20 to the trailhead parking is gravel and easily accessible for all vehicles with several large turnouts that can be camped at.  The rest of the loop past the turn to the trailhead parking is not graveled but still passable by most vehicles.  I would be more hesitant to use the loop in wet weather where the ground may be soft.

Unfortunately as you can see in a couple of the pictures not everyone cares for our public lands appropriately, there is some garbage left around and someone has taken it upon themselves to use signs and structures for target practice.

- AT&T has 2 bars of LTE and very slow data with a 243ms ping time and a 10Mbps download once it eventually started 

- T-Mobile has 3 bars and my hotspot was able to achieve 18.85Mbps download although it too had a long ping time of 292ms

- Starlink has an unobstructed view of the sky with a 226.6Mbps download speed and 27ms ping