Departure
88%
vs 95% ▼ 7
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Johnson Creek Airport is a grass backcountry airstrip in central Idaho, three miles south of the remote village of Yellow Pine in Valley County, managed by the Idaho Division of Aeronautics. Long regarded as one of the premier backcountry destinations in the United States, it combines a well-tended turf runway with a fly-in camping culture that draws pilots from across the country.
Johnson Creek Airport is a grass backcountry airstrip in central Idaho, sited three miles south of the small village of Yellow Pine in Valley County. It is owned and managed by the Idaho Division of Aeronautics, a branch of the Idaho Transportation Department, and is staffed by a resident caretaker through the flying season. The field is famed among backcountry aviators as one of the finest turf strips in the country, prized both for the quality of its runway and for the camping and courtesy-car facilities that make it a popular overnight stop for touring pilots.
The airport lies in the heart of Idaho's backcountry, surrounded by the Boise National Forest and Payette National Forest, three miles south of Yellow Pine. McCall Airport, another well-known Idaho backcountry gateway, lies about 26 miles to the west and can serve as a useful reference point when routing toward Johnson Creek.
Johnson Creek has a single grass runway, 17/35, measuring 3,461 feet in length. There is no lighting and no ILS or other instrument approach aid associated with the field, so operations are conducted visually.
No communications frequencies are published for Johnson Creek Airport, and there are no navaids or instrument approaches serving the field; pilots operate visually and coordinate their own traffic separation in the vicinity.
There are no published circuit heights or joining procedures in available references, but pilots are asked to be courteous around the Bryant family home, a white house at the south end of the strip, and to avoid overflying it during arrival and departure.
The Bryant family's white house at the south end of the runway is a key visual reference, as is the village of Yellow Pine itself, three miles to the north. McCall Airport, roughly 26 miles west, provides a broader orientation point for pilots approaching from that direction.
The airfield began as a small dirt strip before the Bryant family donated a large tract of land to the state of Idaho, allowing the runway to be expanded into the substantial turf strip seen today. Since then it has been managed by the Idaho Division of Aeronautics, which employs a full-time seasonal caretaker, generally from May to October, to maintain the grass and facilities. The strip has also been the scene of two fatal accidents in recent years: an Aviat A-1A Husky crashed near the departure end of runway 35 in August 2022, and a Cessna T206H crashed and burned southeast of the departure end of runway 17 during a go-around in August 2024.
Johnson Creek remains an active backcountry airstrip, recording around 5,750 aircraft operations a year, the large majority general aviation with a smaller proportion of air taxi traffic. The resident caretaker mows and waters the runway and parking areas, splits firewood for campers, and maintains a campground with a bunk house, complimentary hot showers, pit toilets, a small shelter with a freezer and telephone, and two courtesy rental cars. The airport is also used by McCall Mountain Flying Seminars for backcountry flight training, and has hosted fly-in events and served as a staging point for search and rescue operations in the surrounding wilderness.
