Shorts Bar Recreation Site

Nice overnight on the river. Great beach and water fun if you like that. Was quiet on a Sunday overnight. Area right off paved road. Camping on packed gravel in 25 ft sprinter. Very accessible for big rigs. No mosquitoes but there are flies. Pesky but not biterS 👍. Has pit toilets that were pretty clean. There is vzw cell coverage but we got mostly 3g. Was better at night a little.

A lot of people come here in the summer for rafting and float tubing. Good free BLM spot. Just a large dirt lot. With a good booster you can get reasonably good Verizon and AT&T here. The town of Riggins is around the river bend. Small little place with some bars and restaurants that specifically cater to the river going crowd. It's Idaho rafting capitol. Good clean vault toilets. Not too much trash but it's a pack in pack out spot with no trash service.

This is a nice spot. Even though it's a big parking lot area, you can park right along the river. Any size rig could get here easily and find a place to park. 1 bar LTE for ATT and 2 bars 4G for Verizon. Zero OTA channels. Riggins is a cute town with a few restaurants and a grocery store. There is an elk ranch across the street. We would stay here again.

As SubaruVagabond's review says, the bridge that google maps tries to take you over is not for vehicles. Just keep going down the road and you will see the only bridge you can take.

This is just one huge lot with no designated spots. It's a bit of a mess and usually really busy. We just needed a place to stay for the night and so it was fine for that. I say I wouldn't stay here again, but that is as a destination, for a "one night stand," it's good. The river is right there, so a lot of local fisherman and there is also an elk farm across the street. I didn't realize how loud those buggers are. There is no shade except for when the sun falls past the mountains. I can't say if there is a lot of things to do in the area, but from just the drive, I don't think there is much.

Cell service was decent but not the greatest.

This is a mostly beautiful spot, right on the Salmon River. It is a beautiful, reasonably clean spot, overall. There should be plenty of space for any rig to get in and find a spot to setup on pretty easily level ground. The lot is huge. If you want shade from trees, you're going to have an extremely limited chance at such, but there's a few for that, even. You can always go take a dip in the river too cool off!

Google Maps tried to take me over a bridge that is entirely closed to get here. The bridge that you actually do take isn't marked on Google Maps at all, but it is just to the south of the one that is closed. Other than that, getting here is easy, and the "driveway", if you will, in is even easy enough.

I was going to stay here for 2 weeks, despite the heat topping 100F regularly in August. The only reason that I left is because the hills across the river were on fire and I was getting uncomfortable breathing in the smoke as the fire marched ever closer. That shouldn't be a normal concern at all, and speaks pretty well of the spot for that to be the reason I left.

That said, there was really only 1 bad thing: the noise. This is a very popular spot on the river for swimming and launching rafts. Buses of people came and went on a regular basis. One night, a group of frat boys spent the whole night partying at this spot as well. There was really just a constant stream of noise, day and night. It could be worse, but it was pretty bad anyway. That's really the only negative I have to say about the spot that detracted a point for me.

Bugs were bad... TONS of mosquitoes that didn't seem to care how much bug spray I used. A neighbor complained about the same, so it wasn't just me. Also lots of flies in the 4 vault toilets. (Toilets were otherwise very clean, though! Surprisingly clean for how much they were used, even.)

Cell Reception: With a booster, I got spotty Verizon LTE or 3G, depending. Even sitting still, it would drop entirely sometimes. Without the booster, there was a couple of spots where it would come in, but wasn't reliable. Speeds were always on the slower side; I was able to Skype on my phone, but it was pretty bad quality and would cut in and out. My TMobile phone (the original Nexus 5) didn't even get roaming, so AT&T is probably nonexistent here, too.

I would stay here again. It's a beautiful spot in the Salmon River Canyon: the second deepest canyon in North America (Hells Canyon being the deepest). There's access (up a long dirt road) to Hells Canyon very close by as well.