Camping

Yosemite's campground season is winding down. Porcupine Flat closes for the year on October 11, and Crane Flat and Tamarack Flat close October 12, according to the park's conditions page. Bridalveil Creek, White Wolf, Yosemite Creek and Tuolumne Meadows are already closed.

That leaves Upper, Lower and North Pines and Camp 4 in Yosemite Valley, plus Wawona and Hodgdon Meadow outside it. All require reservations; the park lists no first-come, first-served sites. Camping or sleeping in a vehicle is allowed only in a campsite you are registered for, and if the park's campgrounds are full you must leave the park to camp.

Starting October 15, overnight parking is no longer allowed along Tioga Road or Glacier Point Road or in their parking lots. That matters for backpackers planning late trips from those trailheads. Glacier Point Road itself is closed for the Dome Fire.

A few other things to know before you go. Fire restrictions remain in effect below 8,000 feet. Expect 15-minute weekday delays at El Capitan Bridge through December and on Big Oak Flat Road, and up to 15-minute delays on Tioga Road between Olmsted Point and Tioga Pass Monday through Thursday. Yosemite Falls is dry.

Overnight camping returns to parts of Santa Rosa Island on October 14, Channel Islands National Park says. Water Canyon Campground and the designated backcountry beach camping areas in the island's northwest and southwest quadrants reopen that day. The southeast quadrant stays closed to backcountry camping, and no permits will be issued there for the rest of the 2026 season. The burn area remains closed to visitors.

The Santa Rosa Island Fire burned 18,379 acres between May 15 and June 4. The park says crews are still stabilizing hillsides in the Torrey pine grove, clearing culverts and protecting cultural and natural sites ahead of a likely El Niño winter. Other resource-protection closures stay in effect.

Water Canyon Campground is about a mile and a half from the Bechers Bay pier and has toilets, picnic tables, food storage boxes, drinking water and wind shelters. Everything else is carried in and out. The park describes backcountry beach camping as a remote wilderness trip for experienced, well-conditioned backpackers and kayakers, with long distances, strong wind, tides and little reliable water.

Reservations are required for both, through Recreation.gov. Existing reservations for October 14 or later stay valid and do not need rebooking. Book the boat or plane to the island before the campsite, and check the park's conditions page before leaving, since closures on the island can change.

The Hershey show is where next year's RVs are shown to buyers, and the 2027 model debuts landed there last week. The one worth noting for anyone who tows with an ordinary vehicle is the return of the Aliner Alite after nearly a decade away: an eleven-foot folding camper at a reported 672 pounds, with a 58-by-76-inch sleeping area, reaching dealers this winter.

Six hundred and seventy-two pounds is the whole argument. That is towable behind vehicles that cannot legally pull a conventional travel trailer, and it is light enough that tongue weight and braking stop being the deciding factors in what you can own.

Ember showed a larger no-slide Overland trailer alongside touring models, which is the same instinct from the other direction: buyers who want the space without the mechanical complexity and failure points of a slide-out. Forest River brought two new camper van lines on Ford Transit and RAM ProMaster chassis, giving Class B shoppers more twin-bed and rear-lounge layouts to compare.

On the truck camper side, modular has become the pitch. New slide-in pop-ups are being sold as a frame you add modules to — seating, power, kitchen — with the ability to add or remove them later. That is a direct answer to the complaint that a camper is a fixed floorplan you either fit into or do not.

Read it alongside what the overland shows have been saying all year about payload and roof weight. Two different industries have independently arrived at the same conclusion, which is that the last decade sold people more vehicle than they needed.

The Eldorado and Tahoe national forests close their public comment periods on proposed recreation fee changes at the end of business on September 29. Both cover campgrounds, cabins and day-use sites, and the Eldorado proposal also reaches wilderness overnight permits and Christmas tree permits. Comments go to the named recreation officer at each forest and then to a regional advisory committee.

Smoke from the Dome Fire reached Douglas County in Nevada on Tuesday, well east of the fire itself, and satellite mapping shows it and a second fire burning actively through the night. If you are camping anywhere downwind this weekend, air quality is the thing to check rather than the fire perimeter: a camp fifty miles from a closure can still be unpleasant or genuinely inadvisable for anyone with a respiratory condition. AirNow is the reference.

The $8 charged when you reserve a federal campground is a transaction fee for the booking platform, not a Forest Service recreation fee. It rides on top of the site cost and it is charged per reservation, not per night — which means splitting one trip into two bookings costs you twice.

Fee-free days apply to entrance and day use, not to camping. Eight dates carry free entrance at national parks in 2026, and a booked campsite is still payable on every one of them. Plan the free day around a day trip rather than a weekend.

Dispersed camping is where assumptions cost people citations. Rules are local and stricter than the general reputation suggests: one Southern California forest caps camping outside a developed campground at seven consecutive days in a calendar year, and a Nevada state park on the east shore of Tahoe prohibits dispersed camping outright between two named points. Check the specific unit, not the general principle.

Fees are also moving. Several forests ran comment periods this year on new and increased rates covering campgrounds, cabins, day-use sites and in some cases wilderness permits. Each proposal notes how much of the forest stays free, which is a fair point and also a reminder that the free share is shrinking.

If you want a cheap night legally, the reliable combination is a national forest outside a management zone, a dispersed site already showing use, a fire restriction check that morning, and everything packed out.

Several trails in Spooner Lake Backcountry close during weekday construction hours this season, affecting North Canyon Road, the Marlette Lake and Marlette Creek trails, Hobart Road and the Marlette Flume Trail south of the rock slide. Mount Rose Summit Campground was scheduled on reservations only through September 10, so treat it as shut. Dispersed camping is prohibited inside Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park between Tunnel Creek and Spooner Summit, which catches out people looking for a free night on the east shore.

The Eldorado and Tahoe national forests both put fee changes out for public comment on July 31, covering campgrounds, cabins, day-use sites and, on the Eldorado, wilderness overnight permits and Christmas tree permits. Comments on both close at the end of business on September 29.

They are not alone. Six Rivers opened a comment period in May that ran to September 15. Green Mountain and Finger Lakes in Vermont and New York, and Helena-Lewis and Clark in Montana, ran their own this year. Several reached the Federal Register earlier this month.

The forests make a consistent argument: rising costs, deferred maintenance, and a 2004 law that lets the Forest Service keep at least 80 percent of what it collects and spend it at the site where it was collected. Each proposal also makes a point of noting how much of the forest stays free — roughly 40 percent of sites on the Eldorado, nearly half on the Tahoe, two thirds on Six Rivers.

Worth separating from the fee itself: the $8 charged when you book through the federal reservation site is a transaction fee for the booking platform, not a Forest Service recreation fee. It rides on top of whatever the campground costs, and it is per reservation.

Nationally recognised fee-free days are being preserved at day-use sites under all of these proposals. Comments go to the named recreation officer at each forest, by post, email or the online tool, and the proposals then go to a regional advisory committee before anything is final.

Fire danger on the Angeles moved to Very High on July 24 as temperatures climbed and fuels dried. No new campfire restrictions came with the change, which is the part people misread: the rating is an awareness measure, not a ban. Existing rules still apply, including the seven-day cap on camping outside a developed campground in any calendar year, and the Williamson Rock closure affecting Pacific Crest Trail users runs through the end of December.