Mt. Heyburn Campground

     Redfish Lake is a natural, glacier carved lake with thick pine forest on the east side and the jagged Sawtooth Mountain range on the west side. It’s named after the thousands of sockeye salmon that made the yearly journey from the ocean up the Columbia River, the Snake River, and the Salmon River to spawn in the gravel of the streams flowing out of the lake. Today very few sockeye make the 900 mile trip to the lake because their passage is blocked by four dams on the lower Snake River.

       There are five forest service campgrounds with over 140 sites at the north end of the lake. Glacier and Outlet are reservable. Mt Heyburn and Sockeye are first-come, and Point is tenting only. The campgrounds are very popular so make reservations or show up early in the day to get a first-come, first-serve site. Our friends were camp hosting at Mt Heyburn and invited us to come spend a week camping with them. Thanks guys!

  The campsites at Mt Heyburn are left in a natural state with paved parking pads but grass and dirt around the tables and grills. None are accessible but most can be used. All of the campsites in the other campgrounds that accept RVs are accessible.  The Visitor Center is on a hill and is not accessible due to many steps. The beaches are not accessible. We walked/rolled almost every day from Mt Heyburn Campground to the Redfish Lake Lodge along Orion trail in Outlet Campground which connects to a section of the lake road that is closed to traffic. This route is about 1.5 miles one way and requires walking along the road with traffic for several hundred feet in two spots. Mt Heyburn  44.13532, -114.91498