Best Glamping near Bennington Lake

We stopped for a night in a rustic camping cabin at Emigrant Springs in July of 2015. It was a welcome dose of green after a long day of brown along the interstate through Idaho and western Oregon. The cabin was rustic, the shower house was in good repair with nice hot showers. There seemed to be good space and shade around the sites offering some privacy. Great spot! Take the time to stop in Meacham on the West side of I-84 tomstop at The Oregon Trail Cafe - literally the ONLY store in this teeny town. Wonderful hospitality, the local ‘scoop’ and great breakfast.

Along Tucannon Rd there are several free state campgrounds, and right where the road turns to dirt there is this USFS campground. It’s $8/night, no host on site, no reservations, self pay at the board. Really peaceful and quiet, very beautiful. 

At the end of the campground is an Environmental Learning Center/ kids camp, so you may get some traffic from that. There’s also a little hiking trail that was overgrown and unmaintained when we were there, it was really beautiful though. Pit toilets here, no water and no trash, no amenities. Zero cell reception in this entire area, pretty much all the way until hwy 12. 

The sites here at this campground all have different configurations, most didn’t look level, but there were a bunch that would have fit our 26ft class c. Sites 15 & 16 are in one huge area off by themselves (together), so a big group would fit here well (2 car limit per site, 8 people limit per site), so 4 cars and 16 people for the large lot with 15 & 16. 

There’s a nice creek running through here, so the sound was nice and soothing. 

When looking at directions to get here, heads up that the roads that connect Tucannon Rd to Hwy 12 going east are not suitable for big rigs, so you’ll have to drive west all the way to Hwy 12 then to Delaney and then take 12 east from there.

When we arrived after dark the 200 ft path to our cabin was cleared and we could easily drag our items stacked on a tarp to our cabin. The cabin does share a wall with another party but it was funny to hear the children laugh and play. It was below zero but the electric heater kept us toasty warm. The bathroom and shower is about 300 ft away if you walk through two feet of snow. We brought a collapsible toilet to have on the covered porch. Drove up to the bathroom when needed. The park ranger spent all day moving snow and keeping the roads through the campground excellent. The bathrooms and showers are always clean. The day we left the park ranger came and moved another foot of snow so we could easily pack out. We brought our instant pot and warmed are already prepared foods. If you don't want things to freeze you got to keep them in your cooler. We brought lots of cozy blankets and could hotspot the computer to watch movies. Make sure you follow trip check for closures of i-84 if camping during snow.