About this place
The South Fork Owyhee River comes into Idaho from the north, already inside a canyon 550 feet deep. The walls are basalt and rhyolite.
Inside it there are rock pinnacles and hoodoos. A hoodoo is a thin spire of rock left standing when the softer rock around it wears away.
Boaters rate this stretch highly. It is remote, it is long enough for a proper trip, and there is wildlife to see.
The facts
- Cost
- Free to camp
- Roads around it
- Recorded as four-wheel drive
- Type
- Open area. Camp anywhere within it
- Managed by
- Bureau of Land Management
The roads around this place are not maintained for a regular car. That comes from the Bureau of Land Management, who record the kind of vehicle that uses each route. Those records cover the roads nearby. They do not cover the last stretch in to the campsite, and nobody has checked that part. Treat this as a warning. We are not promising what you will find when you get there. If you have driven it, tell us what it was like and we will say so here.
Getting there
31 miles of this fork are marked wild. That stretch starts at the Idaho-Nevada border, where the Owyhee River Wilderness begins, and ends where the fork meets the main Owyhee River.
Coordinates 42.18694444, -116.5063889
Open in Google Maps Agency page
What is near here
Nothing nationally famous is close. These are the landmarks nearby.
- Porter Peak Directions
Every distance on this page is the driving distance. A short distance can still take a long time. The road may be closed for the season, covered in snow, or washed out. Many of these roads are dirt. Plan your route before you leave home. Out here there is often no phone signal to look it up on the way.
Nearest town and supplies
- Owyhee, NV Directions
Owyhee is big enough that you’d normally expect fuel and somewhere to buy food. Nobody from here has been to check, so don’t count on it if you’re running low.
Have you been here?
Fees and access change, and the records do not always keep up. If you have been, tell us what you found.
Thank you, that is recorded. It helps the next person.
Add road notes for this site
The thing we cannot get from any government record is what the drive in is actually like. If you have done it, this is the most useful thing you can leave behind. We read everything before it appears, and we print a first name with it if you give one.
Thank you. A person will read it before it goes on the page.
Where this information comes from
The description on this page is ours. The facts in it, and the fee and facility details below it, come from the Bureau of Land Management’s own records, read in August 2026.