Big Trinity Cabin

A shed behind the cabin is stacked with seasoned wood, with a splitting maul, an axe and a hatchet beside it. Water comes from a hand pump outside the door. Big Trinity Cabin, a Boise National Forest rental in the Boise Mountains north of Featherville, has no electricity and no propane. The wood stove inside does both the heating and the cooking.

A double bed, a sofa bed and a wood stove

The cabin sleeps six. It holds one double bed, a sofa bed, side tables, a drop-down kitchen table, a dining table and chairs, dishes and tableware, cookware, cleaning supplies and a fire extinguisher. Guests bring their own bedding, lighting and emergency supplies, along with garbage bags, because there is no trash service and everything is packed out. Candles are not permitted. Outside are a picnic table, a campfire ring with a grill, and an outhouse with a vault toilet. Tents are not allowed at the cabin, and neither are saddle, pack or draft animals. Little Trinity cabin stands next door. It sleeps four and has the same furnishings.

The door is on a combination lock. Instructions are posted at the gate and at the cabin entrance, and the combination comes with the reservation confirmation. The Forest Service gives the season as generally July 15 through October. Campflare reports that the Trinity cabins were closed for the 2025 season for renovations. The Forest Service page, last updated July 16, 2026, lists the site as open. Phone service is an hour away, and Campflare records no cell coverage from AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile.

Lodgepole, four lakes, and a road to the top of Trinity Mountain

The route runs east from Boise on I-84 to Mountain Home, then 35 miles east on Highway 20 to the Pine/Featherville turnoff. From there it goes 29 miles north on Forest Highway 61 to Forest Road 172. The pavement ends at that junction. Forest Road 172 is native-material dirt and is posted as not recommended for trailers. Recreation.gov says vehicles with reasonable ground clearance can make it. From there it is 15 miles northwest to Forest Road 129, then 3 miles to the Guard Station junction, with signs at each turn.

The cabin sits in a dense lodgepole pine forest near the East Fork Roaring River, among four subalpine lakes: Big Roaring River, Little Roaring River, Big Trinity and Little Trinity. Snow can keep the area closed until early July, and wildflowers come up soon after. Elk and deer are common and a black bear turns up now and then. The Forest Service page for the nearby campground adds the occasional moose. The lakes hold rainbow and cutthroat trout and are fished from canoes and kayaks. Big Trinity Lake campground has 17 sites. The 4-mile Rainbow Basin Trail system begins there, and a Forest Service order bars bicycles, motor vehicles, pack animals and motorboats from it. The William H. Pogue National Recreation Trail and the Lava Mountain Trail start near Big Roaring River Lake and are open to off-road vehicles, mountain bikes, horses and hikers. The Little Roaring River Trail also takes bikes and machines.

Trinity Mountain rises just to the south. The Forest Service pages give its height as 9,700 feet. Recreation.gov and Campflare give 9,451. All the sources agree that it is the tallest peak in the range and that its summit is the highest point in Idaho reachable by car, though snow may block the road until early July. From the top of the road, a short, steep hike leads to a lookout tower with a view over the subalpine lakes and the rest of the Boise Range.

The guard station and the lookout

On Campflare the cabin is listed as the Trinity Lakes Guard Station, a “historic cabin rental,” and every set of directions still ends at the Guard Station junction. Trinity Mountain has had a lookout since 1922, according to a weekly history column in The Yellow Pine Times. In the 1920s the lookout walked from the Trinity Lakes Guard Station up to the tower and back again every day.