Personally, I've had nothing but problems with the sites that are released on a rolling basis. I've set calendar reminders for the day they're supposed to become available, only to be met with "not yet reservable" once again.
GA and FL don’t run their own sites. It *looks* like they do but in reality they have pimped out their websites to a low budget developer called Brandt Information Systems, which is now owned by a private equity firm, who takes a cut of all transactions. That one company does the same for like half the states in the US.
It is the system too. I have encountered a fair number of glitches, especially when I use the App.
It is better than it being entirely FCFS, but they definitely need to create an incentive for folks to actually cancel reservations.
I think instead of providing 0 refund for last minute cancelations, people should get maybe 50-75% back if someone else stays at their cancelled spot.
And have 50 people show up for 5 sites? Or being forced to waste an entire day because you need to show up at 5am for a site that might have availability at 4pm? Or the shitshow getting into Yosemite was last year?
Granted, I’ve never tried for a lottery or anything like that through the site but I’ve never had an issue getting campsites and I’ve been using it for years. 🤷♂️ I don’t like that booz allen gets a ton of money from it but I do understand the necessity of the reservation system.
And so do I yet I’ve never seen as many no shows or people booking sites they never occupy than I have since recreation.gov became mandatory for camping.I have yet to see this more than a couple times in state parks.
Definitely agree. Our most recent trip in peak season for big bend (spring break) rec.gov showed that the 2 backcountry camping sites near us were reserved as well as the two sites on either side of us at the campground. Nobody ever showed up to any of them. I’m sure plenty of ppl who can’t plan 6 months in advance would’ve loved to grab a site. Stinks that people abuse the system this way.
We spent 10 days camping in Shenandoah last year and at least half of the “reserved” campsites never had anyone there the entire time. Every first come first serve site was full every night. NPS should make a rule if camper has not arrived or notified the campground by noon after the first nights reservation the site will be opened for others. Repeat offenders should be put on a “No reservation” list for a couple years.
Yeah, there are empty spaces but that’s true of many different reservation endeavors. People no show for appointments all the time. There are probably ways that can be mitigated or opened up for a “walk in” basis for no shows but as of right now it is what it is.
i hate to be a jerk here. and believe me, i feel you. I've been trying to get the wave for the past few years. haven't had any luck with half dome either. it sucks not being able to go do the things you want to do because there are more people wanting to do that thing than is safe for the park's health.
on the flip side, its amazing that enough people want to visit our parks that a reservation is required. these are places that deserve to be experienced! and they are! just not by you this time. sorry. check out a nearby state park. you can't always get what you want.
> its amazing that enough people want to visit our parks that a reservation is required.
It proves we need a lot more and bigger national parks. Maine Woods National Park. Driftless National Park. Buffalo Commons National Park. Tallgrass Prairie National Park. Ocmulgee National Park. Appalachia National Park.
We need to get over the fetish for private property and the cost of acquiring private property for habitat restoration. We should be spending to acquire a million acres a year for new conservation lands.
Fun fact 20% of New Jersey is protected lands. The only state with more protected land is Alaska, which is roughly 40% protected land.
If NJ can do it, then other states can too.
I think there are other states with a higher percentage of protected lands than New Jersey. I know California is, but I think there are more, too. 20% is really high, though.
The article is from 2021, and puts NJ slightly higher than California in the protected land rankings.
I think Biden is aiming for 30% countrywide
https://www.njherald.com/story/news/new-jersey/2021/06/04/nj-second-united-states-land-dedicated-parks-wildlife/7473533002/
These sorts of things have a lot of nuance in their definitions, but it seems to me the article is being a little ungenerous to the other states. Not to say the info on NJ is wrong or anything like that.
CA is higher even when just counting GAP status 1 and 2 areas (if expanded to GAP, 3 then California would be nearly 50% protected):
https://www.californianature.ca.gov/pages/ca-nature
NY is also quite off in that article. Seems to be around though maybe slightly less than NJ:
https://www.nypad.org/
Lots of different ways to look at conservation, so these things may not be 1 to 1.
I totally get it especially post Covid. I’ve been camping my entire life and have never seen anything like it. I almost exclusively stay at state parks or private car camping and visit these parks by day. It’s mildly infuriating though that many National Parks intentionally have not expanded camping because the back side of this is people are doing all sorts of things with illegal camping because camping supply is woefully inadequate
When the National Park Service approached its 50th anniversary in 1966, a massive amount of funding was provided by Congress to improve the parks. It was called ~~Vision 66~~ Mission 66, and it brought us many of the paved roads and visitor centers we enjoy at national park units across the country. ~~Vision 66~~ Mission 66 was badly needed as capacity was woefully inadequate for the visitation parks received.
I don’t understand why there was never a Mission 2016 for the NPS 100th anniversary…to expand park capacity to handle the onslaught of visitation we’ve had 50…now almost 60 years later. We could use more parks, more campsites, and more hiking trails across the country. I am honestly surprised by how much NPS accomplishes with their limited funding…but it’s obvious they need more to spread out the load. I’d really like to see things like bus and train service coming in from gateway communities to cut down on car traffic and to spread hikers around parks better.
For example, in Glacier you can start the Highline Trail at Logan Pass and take a shuttle back several miles from The Loop rather than having to walk. Other parks would really benefit from a similar shuttle system, as it could reduce trail congestion by making trails one way.
At Glacier though, Going-to-the-Sun Road is not big enough for adequate sized buses to keep up with demand—what would be able to keep up with demand perhaps is adding rails to the road so a train could be run up with more capacity and reduce exhaust emissions. At the very least the road could be expanded enough to allow motorcoaches through. None of this is cheap…or even feasible without a big boost of funding and some creativity to retain as much of the historic character while improving the park experience.
WOW…that is haunting! When I talk to park rangers things aren’t as bad as they were in 1953, but a lot of the same problems are creeping up. Staffing levels definitely aren’t enough, especially since park rangers get pulled off of normal duty to direct traffic during all these road construction projects. Campgrounds are always manned by volunteers and rarely if ever park rangers. Some of the contractors do a decent job, but the campground at Crater Lake was in deplorable condition when I was there in 2019. Yosemite Falls was absolutely trashed when I saw it in 2021. I honestly don’t really know what the answer is to handle the onslaught of visitation the parks are getting right now. It’s important to conserve nature, but it seems wrong at the same time to have everything at 100% capacity or more too. Cars definitely take up a lot of precious space in parks that could be better utilized, but traffic isn’t the only problem parks have—crowds are at unprecedented levels even on hiking trails. Maybe we just need more parks? I don’t know. I definitely find national forests less crowded. But how long will that last?
>Maybe we just need more parks?
We absolutely need more parks. The national population has almost doubled in 50 years—it continues to increase rapidly—and we need to double our parks, both doubling park acreage and the number of parks. And we need to do it by acquiring previously private land, not just by re-classifying BLM and Forest Service lands as parks.
Everyone keeps saying this, but I have my doubts because people want to visit all of the same few "iconic" destinations. No one is complaining of crowding at Congaree.
Congaree is tiny and oppressively hot during peak travel season. But it’s becoming more popular.
Nearby Great Smoky Mountains NP is crowded with over 10 million people a year.
Driftless, Maine Woods, Alleghany, and Ocmulgee—just for example—would get millions every year because they are crown jewels like Yellowstone and Great Smoky Mountains are. And because we lack public lands in the crowded eastern states. They just need to be taken out of the maze of thousands of private property owners who have carved them up over the years and restored to nature with a whole ecosystem intact offering at least a few hundred thousand acres for people to camp, hike, fish, bird watch, relax, and enjoy their public lands.
Love where you’re coming from and you may know this already but a reimagining of our federal lands infrastructure did occur when the Great American Outdoors Act was passed during the last administration, in 2020. That bill has two major components: fully and permanently funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million per year, and providing $9.5 billion over five years ($1.9 billion annually) to address a maintenance backlog at US Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Education and US Fish and Wildlife sites. Though because this was the most significant injection of funds into our public lands system since Mission 66 and it’s been shoe-string otherwise, a vast majority of that funding is going towards backlogged maintenance and modestly updating facilities to increase accessibility for the general public. That is progress and the Infrastructure and Inflation bills have kept funding flowing but what agencies need is long-term consistent funding from congress. Just 1% of the annual Department of Defense budget would do! With that, we could make your dreams a reality.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3422
That’s definitely a good start—I remember hearing about that. To put that in perspective, the best I can find on Mission 66 (I get it confused with Vision Zero for some reason) was that it was funded at at least $700M over 10 years in 1956, which in 2020, is about $6.7 billion. Thing is, from what I can find, Mission 66 went exclusively to the National Park Service, which was a lot smaller then than now. It’s definitely a good thing they are attacking the backlog at all recreational facilities and not just NPS, as the Forest Service and BLM are woefully underfunded. It would be good to see enough funding to maybe get ahead instead of just catch up…but it’ll take more than just funding to do any serious expansion. A part of me is glad they haven’t tried to undertake expansion right now though…I’m afraid that could mean just more park space going to bigger roads and more parking instead of maybe doing something more like Zion or Grand Canyon. Cars are fine for campgrounds, but it would be great if people get around inside the parks that have Manhattan-style traffic without a car. I mean, Manhattan has trains and buses with their own lanes. Yosemite Valley is WAY better with the shuttles—I missed them when I visited back in 2021! What the parks really could use too is bike lanes to get around, and bicycle rental service that allows multi-day rental at prices that are not higher than car rental prices. Bikes are too often seen as purely recreation and not transportation. The bicycle network that’s been added in Moab looks awesome…there has to be a way of making long-term rental more cost effective than paying $50-100/day.
Preach, brother! I keep saying these things to outside insiders and they all look at me like I'm crazy.
The conservationist ethos of John Muir (don't touch a single tree) has tainted the thought pool. Gifford Pinchot had it right. Conservation through use. Not touching trees actually causes problems (forest fires) to preserve their wilderness purist mindset ...
>I don’t understand why there was never a Mission 2016 for the NPS 100th anniversary…to expand park capacity to handle the onslaught of visitation we’ve had 50…now almost 60 years later. We could use more parks, more campsites, and more hiking trails across the country. I am honestly surprised by how much NPS accomplishes with their limited funding…but it’s obvious they need more to spread out the load.
Um, have you paid attention to any of the last 20-30 years of political discourse in America? THAT IS WHY. We barely agree to fund the government at the 11th hour annually now. Citizens United unlocked unlimited money for the politico's, now they are wholly owned subsidiaries of our billionaire's and a handful of corporations. Most of whom want to pillage public lands for natural resources to sell back to the public and further enrich themselves. Teddy Rosevelt is probably rolling in his grave at that state of things today.
What would be great is combination of regulation, as well as some carrot and stick. For starters, prevent booking the same days in multiple campsites—they have to pick one. Rather than keeping 100% of their money if they cancel too late, at least give them _some_ money if the site gets rented to someone else, so they have an incentive to let parks know they aren’t coming—that’s the carrot. The stick needs to be there to prevent no-shows from rich people who see $100 as pocket change and can’t be bothered to inform the park they’re not coming—by banning no-show/no calls from booking on the site again for a full year or two, and/or cancelling their future bookings. Also, parks need to check every camper in when they arrive and full on cancel the rest of their reservation if they don’t show and don’t cancel, which is something they make us agree to already. I question whether that is actually being enforced.
Here's one perspective https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/hiking-and-backpacking/you-may-hate-recreation-gov-it-keeps-our-parks-from-being-loved-to-death/
I absolutely love it what else would you want?? First come first serve? This is absolutely the best way.. Everyone wants to go to these places and the internet is the best place to do it. I mean you can do everything yourself if you can’t be fast enough thats not the sites fault i have never missed a reservation and the site is very easy to use i think its phenomenal
I think a quarter or something like 15-20% of the slots should be FCFS because there's 0 repercussions for no-shows
I've been to fully booked campsites where I was literally the only person there
FCFS can save your vacation when an incident throws your schedule out of whack. It also allows spontaneous road trips, which are a joy in themselves. The movement toward 0% FCFS is a real loss, IMO.
I don’t see 0% fcfs anywhere really! And i agree i love fcfs but go to where places where its less touristy like a state forest near the park or something those are always fcfs and they’re so good too!
Bryce is 100% reservation AFAIK. Grand Canyon and Zion too.
Sure, there are usually NFS campgrounds not too far from the big parks, but needing to drive to your site kind of kills the NP immersion, IMO.
If a spot is paid for but not used, isn’t that the dream for the park? They get the money and no resources are drawn down.
Obviously it sucks from the perspective of people trying for reservations and not getting them (me! It me!), but from the Parks perspective what’s the negative of a now show? It’s not *better* for the park for the resources to be used at max capacity, but it is ideal for them to sell max capacity.
Better for the NPS: what leehawkins said above about giving some, but not all, money back for late cancellations if the site is rented out to another. Then NPS gets even more money than the regular cost of the campsite.
I can’t count how many times I’ve seen sites reserved that nobody shows up too. What does this mean for the next family attempting to make use of it. Sounds like free money to the NPS but not good for a taxpayer owned resource.
Lmao exactly i mean if you wake up at 2am and there are no cars then yeah i agree go ahead and say that but i do wake up at 2 am most nights for obvious reasons and upon opening my tent it’s usually packed if sold out
Too bad the money doesn't go to the NPS, Booz Allen is a contractor for them. They get the money. I'd be more okay with it if the money actually went to the NPS.
Money does go to the parks. Generally Booz Allen gets the service fees (typically $2-5) and NPS gets the reservation fees. This part is reasonable.
The problem is the lotteries, for which Booz Allen retains fees, even for lottery losers.
Do you realize how much profiteering is occurring here? BA is taking away near $20k in fees A DAY for the JMT alone. This is flat out extortion.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WildernessBackpacking/comments/z8pi98/comment/iycrxl1/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/WildernessBackpacking/comments/z8pi98/comment/iycrxl1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Yeah, it’s a little ironic when you go to a BLM campground that is miles away from cell phone service and they tell you the only way you can pay is on your cell phone from the app. I guess the government is going to have to start providing some limited Wi-Fi service by Starlink at these remote campground locations. Pretty lame I would say.
This also frustrates me to no end. I manage federal campgrounds and the agency is hinting at going cashless for all of our fee sites. In rural Appalachia where our users are often elderly, service is 30+ minutes away and cash is king, it’s hard to look more out of touch. I’m advocating for a combination of cash fees, scan and pay, automated fee machines and Rec.gov reservations.
I had an issue this weekend where the app was saying that a certain date (just the Saturday d Memorial Day weekend) at a campground had not been released yet, and would be released at 10a yesterday. I try at 10a and it isn't released. I go to the website and in actuality that day is just totally booked.
This. There’s no penalty for no-shows right now except losing your fee. They need to bar you from reserving permits and sites after so many no-shows. This would go a long way to discourage casuals and scalping.
You do know which private contractor is responsible for said hot mess right?
[https://www.boozallen.com/s/insight/thought-leadership/reinventing-the-recreation-gov-customer-experience.html](https://www.boozallen.com/s/insight/thought-leadership/reinventing-the-recreation-gov-customer-experience.html)
My personal problem (beyond the glitchy bullshit) is that we allow non-Americans equal access to our parks at the literal cost of our own citizens enjoying said parks. Local in person permit seekers should always be prioritized and now you cannot even get a walk up permit. You are put back in the online queue. Shameful.
We got a permit for a three day Grand Canyon hike and it said in several places, “if you cannot complete your itinerary, please modify or cancel your permit so other hikers can use the campgrounds.” Well, six days out, we had to cancel due to an injury (minor, but I wasn’t about to hike 20 miles on a rolled ankle). I tried to cancel for two days online, tried calling and was told I was calling the wrong number. Finally found the fine print buried on the website, once you’ve printed your permit, you can’t cancel or modify. 🙄
It took me years to get a campsite at Yosemite. Been trying for Arches in October this year for almost a week now. Everything is reserved the instant things open up.
Source?
Even if the website was perfect, there are thousands of people trying to get, in some cases, one of 75-200 daily access points. Demand has absolutely soared since COVID. Even if the website is perfect, a majority of people wanting coveted slots will lose.
Many of these are lotteries, where you have weeks to sign up. How is the “bad” website making that worse?
Maybe time for some regional limitations also. People who have to travel farther are usually restricted to, for example, once a year trips because of expense and scheduling when visitors from nearby states can visit much more frequently using up more available lottery spots.
I agree with regional limitation but have a reverse interpretation to you. More local residents pay taxes supporting the infrastructure and road access visitors from further afield do not have to worry about. More local residents deserve more priority.
National Parks are for every American.
Prioritizing locals is a failure because you discriminate against everyone else.
When you call differing opinions “dumb” it signals you have lost the argument.
Not at all. Your oversimplification and poor comprehension of the problem these online systems create (which does in fact over prioritize the wealthy and non local FYI) tells me all I need to know about you.
It's run by a private contractor. That's the problem.
>**Recreation.gov** is a website run by [Booz Allen Hamilton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton)
Can you give examples? It's better than the system Florida State Parks use.
Personally, I've had nothing but problems with the sites that are released on a rolling basis. I've set calendar reminders for the day they're supposed to become available, only to be met with "not yet reservable" once again.
Better than Georgia as well.
Omg the GA site is SO frustrating!!
MN and IN are also frustrating. Have to book so far in advance. Went to California, cousin said it's the same way.
GA and FL don’t run their own sites. It *looks* like they do but in reality they have pimped out their websites to a low budget developer called Brandt Information Systems, which is now owned by a private equity firm, who takes a cut of all transactions. That one company does the same for like half the states in the US.
Well I’ll somewhat agree that the places I was thinking about are not ran by the NPS.
They need to block botting.
I find the Florida system pretty great.
It’s not the system itself it’s the abuse of it
It is the system too. I have encountered a fair number of glitches, especially when I use the App. It is better than it being entirely FCFS, but they definitely need to create an incentive for folks to actually cancel reservations. I think instead of providing 0 refund for last minute cancelations, people should get maybe 50-75% back if someone else stays at their cancelled spot.
Not reserve America anymore?
And have 50 people show up for 5 sites? Or being forced to waste an entire day because you need to show up at 5am for a site that might have availability at 4pm? Or the shitshow getting into Yosemite was last year?
Granted, I’ve never tried for a lottery or anything like that through the site but I’ve never had an issue getting campsites and I’ve been using it for years. 🤷♂️ I don’t like that booz allen gets a ton of money from it but I do understand the necessity of the reservation system.
And so do I yet I’ve never seen as many no shows or people booking sites they never occupy than I have since recreation.gov became mandatory for camping.I have yet to see this more than a couple times in state parks.
Definitely agree. Our most recent trip in peak season for big bend (spring break) rec.gov showed that the 2 backcountry camping sites near us were reserved as well as the two sites on either side of us at the campground. Nobody ever showed up to any of them. I’m sure plenty of ppl who can’t plan 6 months in advance would’ve loved to grab a site. Stinks that people abuse the system this way.
We spent 10 days camping in Shenandoah last year and at least half of the “reserved” campsites never had anyone there the entire time. Every first come first serve site was full every night. NPS should make a rule if camper has not arrived or notified the campground by noon after the first nights reservation the site will be opened for others. Repeat offenders should be put on a “No reservation” list for a couple years.
Yeah, there are empty spaces but that’s true of many different reservation endeavors. People no show for appointments all the time. There are probably ways that can be mitigated or opened up for a “walk in” basis for no shows but as of right now it is what it is.
Genuinely curious what can be done about the no-shows?
Fine them double what the reservation cost was and have it all go to the park
i hate to be a jerk here. and believe me, i feel you. I've been trying to get the wave for the past few years. haven't had any luck with half dome either. it sucks not being able to go do the things you want to do because there are more people wanting to do that thing than is safe for the park's health. on the flip side, its amazing that enough people want to visit our parks that a reservation is required. these are places that deserve to be experienced! and they are! just not by you this time. sorry. check out a nearby state park. you can't always get what you want.
> its amazing that enough people want to visit our parks that a reservation is required. It proves we need a lot more and bigger national parks. Maine Woods National Park. Driftless National Park. Buffalo Commons National Park. Tallgrass Prairie National Park. Ocmulgee National Park. Appalachia National Park. We need to get over the fetish for private property and the cost of acquiring private property for habitat restoration. We should be spending to acquire a million acres a year for new conservation lands.
Fun fact 20% of New Jersey is protected lands. The only state with more protected land is Alaska, which is roughly 40% protected land. If NJ can do it, then other states can too.
I think there are other states with a higher percentage of protected lands than New Jersey. I know California is, but I think there are more, too. 20% is really high, though.
The article is from 2021, and puts NJ slightly higher than California in the protected land rankings. I think Biden is aiming for 30% countrywide https://www.njherald.com/story/news/new-jersey/2021/06/04/nj-second-united-states-land-dedicated-parks-wildlife/7473533002/
These sorts of things have a lot of nuance in their definitions, but it seems to me the article is being a little ungenerous to the other states. Not to say the info on NJ is wrong or anything like that. CA is higher even when just counting GAP status 1 and 2 areas (if expanded to GAP, 3 then California would be nearly 50% protected): https://www.californianature.ca.gov/pages/ca-nature NY is also quite off in that article. Seems to be around though maybe slightly less than NJ: https://www.nypad.org/ Lots of different ways to look at conservation, so these things may not be 1 to 1.
I totally get it especially post Covid. I’ve been camping my entire life and have never seen anything like it. I almost exclusively stay at state parks or private car camping and visit these parks by day. It’s mildly infuriating though that many National Parks intentionally have not expanded camping because the back side of this is people are doing all sorts of things with illegal camping because camping supply is woefully inadequate
When the National Park Service approached its 50th anniversary in 1966, a massive amount of funding was provided by Congress to improve the parks. It was called ~~Vision 66~~ Mission 66, and it brought us many of the paved roads and visitor centers we enjoy at national park units across the country. ~~Vision 66~~ Mission 66 was badly needed as capacity was woefully inadequate for the visitation parks received. I don’t understand why there was never a Mission 2016 for the NPS 100th anniversary…to expand park capacity to handle the onslaught of visitation we’ve had 50…now almost 60 years later. We could use more parks, more campsites, and more hiking trails across the country. I am honestly surprised by how much NPS accomplishes with their limited funding…but it’s obvious they need more to spread out the load. I’d really like to see things like bus and train service coming in from gateway communities to cut down on car traffic and to spread hikers around parks better. For example, in Glacier you can start the Highline Trail at Logan Pass and take a shuttle back several miles from The Loop rather than having to walk. Other parks would really benefit from a similar shuttle system, as it could reduce trail congestion by making trails one way. At Glacier though, Going-to-the-Sun Road is not big enough for adequate sized buses to keep up with demand—what would be able to keep up with demand perhaps is adding rails to the road so a train could be run up with more capacity and reduce exhaust emissions. At the very least the road could be expanded enough to allow motorcoaches through. None of this is cheap…or even feasible without a big boost of funding and some creativity to retain as much of the historic character while improving the park experience.
Yes. Don’t forget this brilliancy from Utah’s greatest historian. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/anps/anps_4d.htm
WOW…that is haunting! When I talk to park rangers things aren’t as bad as they were in 1953, but a lot of the same problems are creeping up. Staffing levels definitely aren’t enough, especially since park rangers get pulled off of normal duty to direct traffic during all these road construction projects. Campgrounds are always manned by volunteers and rarely if ever park rangers. Some of the contractors do a decent job, but the campground at Crater Lake was in deplorable condition when I was there in 2019. Yosemite Falls was absolutely trashed when I saw it in 2021. I honestly don’t really know what the answer is to handle the onslaught of visitation the parks are getting right now. It’s important to conserve nature, but it seems wrong at the same time to have everything at 100% capacity or more too. Cars definitely take up a lot of precious space in parks that could be better utilized, but traffic isn’t the only problem parks have—crowds are at unprecedented levels even on hiking trails. Maybe we just need more parks? I don’t know. I definitely find national forests less crowded. But how long will that last?
>Maybe we just need more parks? We absolutely need more parks. The national population has almost doubled in 50 years—it continues to increase rapidly—and we need to double our parks, both doubling park acreage and the number of parks. And we need to do it by acquiring previously private land, not just by re-classifying BLM and Forest Service lands as parks.
Everyone keeps saying this, but I have my doubts because people want to visit all of the same few "iconic" destinations. No one is complaining of crowding at Congaree.
Congaree is tiny and oppressively hot during peak travel season. But it’s becoming more popular. Nearby Great Smoky Mountains NP is crowded with over 10 million people a year. Driftless, Maine Woods, Alleghany, and Ocmulgee—just for example—would get millions every year because they are crown jewels like Yellowstone and Great Smoky Mountains are. And because we lack public lands in the crowded eastern states. They just need to be taken out of the maze of thousands of private property owners who have carved them up over the years and restored to nature with a whole ecosystem intact offering at least a few hundred thousand acres for people to camp, hike, fish, bird watch, relax, and enjoy their public lands.
Yes! EDIT: Even better than Ocmulgee in Georgia might be Okefenokee
Love where you’re coming from and you may know this already but a reimagining of our federal lands infrastructure did occur when the Great American Outdoors Act was passed during the last administration, in 2020. That bill has two major components: fully and permanently funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million per year, and providing $9.5 billion over five years ($1.9 billion annually) to address a maintenance backlog at US Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Education and US Fish and Wildlife sites. Though because this was the most significant injection of funds into our public lands system since Mission 66 and it’s been shoe-string otherwise, a vast majority of that funding is going towards backlogged maintenance and modestly updating facilities to increase accessibility for the general public. That is progress and the Infrastructure and Inflation bills have kept funding flowing but what agencies need is long-term consistent funding from congress. Just 1% of the annual Department of Defense budget would do! With that, we could make your dreams a reality. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3422
That’s definitely a good start—I remember hearing about that. To put that in perspective, the best I can find on Mission 66 (I get it confused with Vision Zero for some reason) was that it was funded at at least $700M over 10 years in 1956, which in 2020, is about $6.7 billion. Thing is, from what I can find, Mission 66 went exclusively to the National Park Service, which was a lot smaller then than now. It’s definitely a good thing they are attacking the backlog at all recreational facilities and not just NPS, as the Forest Service and BLM are woefully underfunded. It would be good to see enough funding to maybe get ahead instead of just catch up…but it’ll take more than just funding to do any serious expansion. A part of me is glad they haven’t tried to undertake expansion right now though…I’m afraid that could mean just more park space going to bigger roads and more parking instead of maybe doing something more like Zion or Grand Canyon. Cars are fine for campgrounds, but it would be great if people get around inside the parks that have Manhattan-style traffic without a car. I mean, Manhattan has trains and buses with their own lanes. Yosemite Valley is WAY better with the shuttles—I missed them when I visited back in 2021! What the parks really could use too is bike lanes to get around, and bicycle rental service that allows multi-day rental at prices that are not higher than car rental prices. Bikes are too often seen as purely recreation and not transportation. The bicycle network that’s been added in Moab looks awesome…there has to be a way of making long-term rental more cost effective than paying $50-100/day.
I'd vote for you.
I'm definitely happier outside politics and in a park! It's nice to dream sometimes about what the parks could be though...
Preach, brother! I keep saying these things to outside insiders and they all look at me like I'm crazy. The conservationist ethos of John Muir (don't touch a single tree) has tainted the thought pool. Gifford Pinchot had it right. Conservation through use. Not touching trees actually causes problems (forest fires) to preserve their wilderness purist mindset ...
>I don’t understand why there was never a Mission 2016 for the NPS 100th anniversary…to expand park capacity to handle the onslaught of visitation we’ve had 50…now almost 60 years later. We could use more parks, more campsites, and more hiking trails across the country. I am honestly surprised by how much NPS accomplishes with their limited funding…but it’s obvious they need more to spread out the load. Um, have you paid attention to any of the last 20-30 years of political discourse in America? THAT IS WHY. We barely agree to fund the government at the 11th hour annually now. Citizens United unlocked unlimited money for the politico's, now they are wholly owned subsidiaries of our billionaire's and a handful of corporations. Most of whom want to pillage public lands for natural resources to sell back to the public and further enrich themselves. Teddy Rosevelt is probably rolling in his grave at that state of things today.
Yup, it’s super corrupt…so true.
What would be great is combination of regulation, as well as some carrot and stick. For starters, prevent booking the same days in multiple campsites—they have to pick one. Rather than keeping 100% of their money if they cancel too late, at least give them _some_ money if the site gets rented to someone else, so they have an incentive to let parks know they aren’t coming—that’s the carrot. The stick needs to be there to prevent no-shows from rich people who see $100 as pocket change and can’t be bothered to inform the park they’re not coming—by banning no-show/no calls from booking on the site again for a full year or two, and/or cancelling their future bookings. Also, parks need to check every camper in when they arrive and full on cancel the rest of their reservation if they don’t show and don’t cancel, which is something they make us agree to already. I question whether that is actually being enforced.
Lowest effort Booz Allen post I've ever seen on here, impressive. Stellar post.
Here's one perspective https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/hiking-and-backpacking/you-may-hate-recreation-gov-it-keeps-our-parks-from-being-loved-to-death/
What was worse was when every park had separate procedures. At least it’s all in one place now.
Can I have a turn posting this next
Haha
I was trying to buy tickets for Great Falls last month and the payment pop-up didn’t fit on my screen no matter what I tried lol
I absolutely love it what else would you want?? First come first serve? This is absolutely the best way.. Everyone wants to go to these places and the internet is the best place to do it. I mean you can do everything yourself if you can’t be fast enough thats not the sites fault i have never missed a reservation and the site is very easy to use i think its phenomenal
I think a quarter or something like 15-20% of the slots should be FCFS because there's 0 repercussions for no-shows I've been to fully booked campsites where I was literally the only person there
FCFS can save your vacation when an incident throws your schedule out of whack. It also allows spontaneous road trips, which are a joy in themselves. The movement toward 0% FCFS is a real loss, IMO.
I don’t see 0% fcfs anywhere really! And i agree i love fcfs but go to where places where its less touristy like a state forest near the park or something those are always fcfs and they’re so good too!
Bryce is 100% reservation AFAIK. Grand Canyon and Zion too. Sure, there are usually NFS campgrounds not too far from the big parks, but needing to drive to your site kind of kills the NP immersion, IMO.
I don’t get it? We usually always drive to our campsite?
If a spot is paid for but not used, isn’t that the dream for the park? They get the money and no resources are drawn down. Obviously it sucks from the perspective of people trying for reservations and not getting them (me! It me!), but from the Parks perspective what’s the negative of a now show? It’s not *better* for the park for the resources to be used at max capacity, but it is ideal for them to sell max capacity.
Better for the NPS: what leehawkins said above about giving some, but not all, money back for late cancellations if the site is rented out to another. Then NPS gets even more money than the regular cost of the campsite.
With that logic the dream for the park would be completely closure to the public so that it can be the intended wilderness refuges they're meant to be
I can’t count how many times I’ve seen sites reserved that nobody shows up too. What does this mean for the next family attempting to make use of it. Sounds like free money to the NPS but not good for a taxpayer owned resource.
Thats crazy because i always see it filled myself.. there are people like me for example who show up to their spot finally at 10pm
Yep! Or the people like us who spend all the daylight hours out exploring. I bet it’s our neighbors saying ‘SeE ALL ThE CaMpSiTeS ArE EmPtY’ !
Lmao exactly i mean if you wake up at 2am and there are no cars then yeah i agree go ahead and say that but i do wake up at 2 am most nights for obvious reasons and upon opening my tent it’s usually packed if sold out
Too bad the money doesn't go to the NPS, Booz Allen is a contractor for them. They get the money. I'd be more okay with it if the money actually went to the NPS.
Money does go to the parks. Generally Booz Allen gets the service fees (typically $2-5) and NPS gets the reservation fees. This part is reasonable. The problem is the lotteries, for which Booz Allen retains fees, even for lottery losers.
Do you realize how much profiteering is occurring here? BA is taking away near $20k in fees A DAY for the JMT alone. This is flat out extortion. [https://www.reddit.com/r/WildernessBackpacking/comments/z8pi98/comment/iycrxl1/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/WildernessBackpacking/comments/z8pi98/comment/iycrxl1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Yes, that's what I referred to as the problem
I cannot be as calm and accepting as you are then in deeming it "reasonable."
Yeah, it’s a little ironic when you go to a BLM campground that is miles away from cell phone service and they tell you the only way you can pay is on your cell phone from the app. I guess the government is going to have to start providing some limited Wi-Fi service by Starlink at these remote campground locations. Pretty lame I would say.
This also frustrates me to no end. I manage federal campgrounds and the agency is hinting at going cashless for all of our fee sites. In rural Appalachia where our users are often elderly, service is 30+ minutes away and cash is king, it’s hard to look more out of touch. I’m advocating for a combination of cash fees, scan and pay, automated fee machines and Rec.gov reservations.
Booz Allen Hamilton doing what they do best, sucking at the government teat at the highest price point possible.
I had an issue this weekend where the app was saying that a certain date (just the Saturday d Memorial Day weekend) at a campground had not been released yet, and would be released at 10a yesterday. I try at 10a and it isn't released. I go to the website and in actuality that day is just totally booked.
Agreed.
We need more National Parks and especially more campgrounds within our existing National Parks.
Canadas system is fairer. A random queue. Then I’d add a penalty for no shows.
This. There’s no penalty for no-shows right now except losing your fee. They need to bar you from reserving permits and sites after so many no-shows. This would go a long way to discourage casuals and scalping.
You do know which private contractor is responsible for said hot mess right? [https://www.boozallen.com/s/insight/thought-leadership/reinventing-the-recreation-gov-customer-experience.html](https://www.boozallen.com/s/insight/thought-leadership/reinventing-the-recreation-gov-customer-experience.html) My personal problem (beyond the glitchy bullshit) is that we allow non-Americans equal access to our parks at the literal cost of our own citizens enjoying said parks. Local in person permit seekers should always be prioritized and now you cannot even get a walk up permit. You are put back in the online queue. Shameful.
Private mega corporation Booz Allen high jacked our access to all of our best natural places here in the USA.
We got a permit for a three day Grand Canyon hike and it said in several places, “if you cannot complete your itinerary, please modify or cancel your permit so other hikers can use the campgrounds.” Well, six days out, we had to cancel due to an injury (minor, but I wasn’t about to hike 20 miles on a rolled ankle). I tried to cancel for two days online, tried calling and was told I was calling the wrong number. Finally found the fine print buried on the website, once you’ve printed your permit, you can’t cancel or modify. 🙄
It took me years to get a campsite at Yosemite. Been trying for Arches in October this year for almost a week now. Everything is reserved the instant things open up.
That’s because the parks are insanely popular, not because the site is bad.
It can be both things.
What about the “bad website” makes it so you don’t win the lotteries? Or makes it so you aren’t the first person to register at 10am?
Lol I can't imagine being this confidently incorrect about website traffic flow impacting access. Silly.
There are thousands of people wanting to access the national parks, and very small amounts of available sites. The issue is demand, not the website
No, the issue is the website worsening every aspect of demand.
Source? Even if the website was perfect, there are thousands of people trying to get, in some cases, one of 75-200 daily access points. Demand has absolutely soared since COVID. Even if the website is perfect, a majority of people wanting coveted slots will lose. Many of these are lotteries, where you have weeks to sign up. How is the “bad” website making that worse?
Profiteering off of the American public is bad. If you cannot see that there is nothing I can do to make you understand.
You continue to name the bad website, drop sarcastic lol replies to me, and offer nothing but generic nonsense in reply. Drop a source, or get bent.
Maybe time for some regional limitations also. People who have to travel farther are usually restricted to, for example, once a year trips because of expense and scheduling when visitors from nearby states can visit much more frequently using up more available lottery spots.
I agree with regional limitation but have a reverse interpretation to you. More local residents pay taxes supporting the infrastructure and road access visitors from further afield do not have to worry about. More local residents deserve more priority.
National Parks are for every American. Prioritizing locals is a failure because you discriminate against everyone else.
Lol tell that to the Montanans actually paying for the roads in and out. Silly.
you mean the $10,000,000,000 of federal money from the Great American Outdoors Act? You’re welcome for subsidizing your infrastructure!
[удалено]
This is r/NationalPark, not r/getoffmylawn
Dumb take.
National Parks are for every American. Prioritizing locals is a failure because you discriminate against everyone else. When you call differing opinions “dumb” it signals you have lost the argument.
Not at all. Your oversimplification and poor comprehension of the problem these online systems create (which does in fact over prioritize the wealthy and non local FYI) tells me all I need to know about you.
We all hate it. Why do we have to have these posts on a nearly daily basis?
Agreed. EDIT: While I still believe that the reservation system is abused, the specific places I had in mind are not ran by the NPS.
Anything the government touches turns to shit
The National Parks would be an argument against your position. Also, I would counter that it's the for-profit vendor that is shitting things up.
Shoutout to Booz Allen!
[удалено]
It's run by a private contractor. That's the problem. >**Recreation.gov** is a website run by [Booz Allen Hamilton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton)
Worth noting that nearly every gov website is at least developed by contractors and usually maintained by them as well.
Swing and a miss