Sawtooth National Forest Free RV Dispersed Camping

We made it to Idaho! On the advice of multiple family members, we were headed towards Ketchum, which is a great little ski town that reminds me of Park City although quite a bit smaller. The real gem is about eight miles up the road from there where we were going to boondock in the Sawtooth National Forest for three nights. We loved our awesome, free dispersed camping spot in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Strong cell service, dump, and potable water nearby for a nominal fee. Get our GPS coordinates. You won’t be disappointed with this spot. Don’t have time to read this now? Pin it for later!

Sawtooth National Recreation Area

North Fork Visitor Center

After getting back on the road about 4:30 pm, thankfully we only had a short two-hour drive to Sawtooth. We got to the North Fork Visitor Center around 6:30 pm. The Visitor Center was closed but there were free brochures and information on hiking and camping in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. This is a great first stop when exploring this area.

It was getting late so we unhooked the Jeep to scout the area for a spot. Up the road from the Visitor Center about 1/4 mile, it turns into the unpaved road - mostly washboard with a few big potholes and ruts, made worse by the recent rain.

Dispersed Camping

There was a dump site ($5) and potable water on the left-hand side of FR-146. The first half dozen clearings, on the right-hand side, were already taken, so we went deeper in and found a few suitable candidates, but one had alone car taking up the whole spot and the other two nearest openings were a mile in, and we were concerned about the even worse road conditions that way with the motorhome.

Some areas were not just unpaved rutty roads but also had tons of small buried rocks sticking up out of the road that probably isn’t great for the tires. I wouldn’t be worried about the Jeep, but the motorhome has somewhere around 6,000 lbs on each rear tire so I have to imagine they are more vulnerable to getting punctured.

At this point, it’s getting past sunset so we just went back to the motorhome which we had left in the Visitor Center parking lot and just made camp there for the night. There were no signs saying no overnight parking so we rolled the dice and it worked out fine.

Then the next morning around 10 am, we went out again to see if anybody had left their spot. It wasn’t looking good, then amazingly enough the spot about a mile in that was blocked by the lone car had opened up and it was easily the best spot for us to get to with the least difficulty. We had to cross a small narrow bridge in order to turnaround and then back into it. That became our home for the next few days, and we loved it! It had a huge firepit and the river/creek ran right next to our camp! We wanted to stay longer but unfortunately, it didn’t work with our schedule.

Forest Road 146

The unpaved road (Forest Road 146) continues another three miles or so deep into the forest so we took the Jeep out the next day and went most of the length of it. So much more fun, and suitable than the Fiat! The road ends in a few hiking trails that we planned to check out later but never did because it ended up raining on and off for. We saw a deer but not much else, unfortunately. On the way back to camp, we did find a fire pit that had a ton of leftover firewood so we grabbed all of that into the Jeep and ended up using that to have an awesome campfire from the afternoon into the evening along with a couple of bottles of wine!

Boondocking Review

Location: Ketchum, Idaho
GPS: 43.801667, -114.421167
Cost: FREE!
Pros: FREE! Good cell service in our spot. Strong enough that I was able to upload pictures. Dump station ($5) and potable water on FR-146.
Cons: Washboard road with large potholes and small buried rocks sticking up but manageable if you go slow
Comments: This is a popular spot so it might be challenging to get a site. We unhooked at the North Fork Visitor Center at the Sawtooth National Recreation Area Headquarters to scope it out. There were no open sites so we spent the first night in the Visitor Center parking lot. We didn’t see any no overnight parking signs and had no issues.

Sawtooth National Forest Map

Planning a visit to the Sawtooth National Forest? We recommend you stop by the North Fork Visitor Center as they had tons of free information or check out these maps and information.