Best Tent Camping near Warren, ID

This is a pretty quiet place! It about an hour drive/17 miles from Cascade on a paved road. True to it's name, the lake and campsite are right on a summit! The lake is pretty small and a little muddy, but a fun dip nevertheless. It's about a 5 minute hike from the campsites. There are 3 campsites at the campground and they are all first come first serve! Dispersed camping is allowed in the area as well. Managed to find 2 empty spots here on Labor Day weekend, which was a real treat! The sites all have fire rings and picnic tables and share a vault toilet. The sites are well spaced and there little noise carries around the area. The campground is a little close the to highway (Warm Lake Rd) but traffic at night is pretty low, so the noise isn't bad. There is a wilderness airstrip not too far off, so some plane noise as well! Otherwise, a nice spot with some great views of the night sky.

The fir trees stand tall and still. I can’t figure out if they are waiting for something to happen or if they simply don’t care.

If you’re looking for sone sort of gorgeous panorama, this might not be the place for you. It’s really just a small meadow in the mountains that the BLM put a vault toilet and a couple of fire rings in. That being said, this place is beautiful.

You can’t see rapid creek from the campground but you can hear it. And that’s really just as good. The white noise from the creek matched with the occasional bird or other nature sound is one of the most relaxing things on the planet.

It’s high enough in elevation that this place gets nippy at night. I stayed in early August and the temps dropped into the upper 30s at night.

The campground is well maintained and the vault toilet was reasonably clean when I arrived. It became Kevin clean shortly after I set up camp.

There are trails from both sites near the vault toilet that lead down to Rapid Creek.

I never saw any bear scat but signs on the property warn of them so be smart with your food.

All in all, Rapid Creek dispersed camping is excellent if you just want a quiet place where no one is around. It’s amazing but not for the reasons people usually like in my opinion. ◦

Beautiful area, incredibly scenic and photographable, but a few things to be aware of.

There is a heck of a drive to get into this place, there’s a very winding and steep road to get there and it took us about an hour from White Bird. That being said, it was a very lovely and scenic drive, and based on the number of trailers and boats that were down there it doesn’t seem to deter many people. Just be aware you’ll want to come prepared with whatever you’ll need while you’re there because it’s not a quick ride back into town to get supplies (and make sure you have enough gas in your tank)

Also, word of warning to any dog owners; I discovered as soon as we unloaded from the vehicle that there are sticky burs absolutely everywhere on the ground and our furry labradoodle was soon covered with them. The first thing we did when we got back into cell phone range was call and schedule him a grooming appointment to get shaved because they were on every inch of his body and would be impossible to comb out.

The campsites are all pretty close together and since this is a desert area there are very few trees, so you will be able to see your fellow campers and they will be able to see you. Each site has a little canopy thing for both shade and I suspect some wind protection (it got extremely windy one of the nights we were there).

It was $8 a night when I was there in August 2020. There was a burn restriction in place from July 1st to September 15th according to posted signs.

If you do not have a trailer, there are some dispersed camping sites at the “Upper Landing” that are clearly marked. They are walk in only but didn’t appear to be too far to walk and seem that they would afford a bit more privacy if that’s what you’d looking for.

This campsite is located east of Cascade Lake and Donnelly, Idaho. It's a scenic road to get there. The camsite we were in was dry camping with no hook-ups. The camping pad for our 27' Travel Trailer was nice and level. Each campsite had a picnic table and a firepit. There are some nice hiking trails in the vicinity. Mountain biking and horse riding is acceptable there as well. Since we had kayaks, we had a short drive to the boat ramp. There is excellent trout fishing. There is a small swim beach near the Warm Lake Lodge and Restaurant, near where the cabins are. All in all, a great stay, away from the city :-) It's a nice peaceful setting.

We came upon this site after passing on the White Bird Recreation Site just north of here - it's so much better and we're so glad we came here. It's an established campground, with maybe 4 or 5 sites, all open, spread out, right on the river. There's a picnic table and fire pit for each site, and a porta potty. Verizon was roaming and AT.T. had great reception. Despite being right off the main road, it was very quiet and you couldn't hear or see traffic since you're lower down on the river. Easy access for big rigs. We stayed here two nights. Ranger came through to check on things, always love to see that.

Beautiful spot. Free! 14 day limit. No trash service, no water other than the river. The campground was nice and clean.