National parks for long 5ers?

What part of size matters do people not understand? It is pretty simple. The bigger you are, the more space you need.

If you are driving a 40'DP & you arrive in a no reservations CG & the only site large enough to accommodate you is occupied by a pop up or a class B, you are out of luck. The CG is also out of luck. It won't be getting any money from you because you have to go elsewhere.

Very simple. The smaller you are, the more options there are available to you.

We stayed in Gros Ventre CG, Grand Teton NP for 5 days last week. There were about 6 sites on the loop large enough long enough to accommodate us. The site across from us was barely long enough for a small class C. The office people were very good at assigning sites according to RV size.

It's math - the larger the rig the fewer spaces it will fit into.

There are some really nice campsites in Yellowstone where even my little popup won't fit. That's not to say there aren't large spots available in Yellowstone - there are. It's just that you have fewer options the bigger you go - and sometimes you'll be squeezed out.

Perhaps one day, things will turn around and they will be able to make some improvements to some of the NP campgrounds and maybe extend some of the parking pads a few feet.

Oldtymeflyr wrote:
For instance call Yellowstone reservations and see if you can find a place. With a 22 foot travel trailer we would have trouble. There are simply a lot of spots you cannot have a chance for.

Again...with our 40' motorhome and towed vehicle we have stayed in 3 of Yellowstone's campgrounds and all without having reservations.

Many of the NP CGs were built when RVs were a lot smaller. Its not that there aren't any spaces for a 35' 5er and TV, just that not all the spaces are. The commercial parks just outside are newer and were built for bigger RVs, and they were able to take down trees that were in the way.

A 36 foot 5th wheel is pretty big for a forest service or national park campground. By the time you are done measuring I bet you are at 50 feet.

This does limit where you can stay. For instance call Yellowstone reservations and see if you can find a place. With a 22 foot travel trailer we would have trouble. There are simply a lot of spots you cannot have a chance for. Remember a smaller unit can take that big space that would fit your 36 foot 5th wheel.

Virtually every National Park will have private RV parks outside of the National Park where you have a better chance.

Good luck!

Suck it in, park and then exhale. It will fit, lol

wbwood wrote:

rr2254545 wrote:

RVcrazy wrote:
Where do you fit? In looking at various camping guides, it looks like we won't fit anywhere if we buy a 35' fiver... We would like to take advantage of the reduced rates, but it looks like options are limited. Any place you found that works for you?

Some saleperson must be feeding you bunk. With a 35 and a 36 ft RV we have fit into lots of places

I would think a salesperson would tell them they could fit a 45' DP in them and not make them think there are any limits.

Most of the time people tell you how big there rigs are, now they are telling us it fits in the same space as a small camper.

I find that having a 28 ft total length TT keeps me out of somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of the campgrounds we would like to visit here in the Rocky Mountain area. Believe it or not, there are campgrounds where my 20 foot long truck is over the limit should we be looking to tent camp. For the most part, we prefer camping in forest service campgrounds. Many of them tend to involve miles of dirt road, often quite narrow and overgrown, with access roads not conductive to navigation by a larger vehicle. Just to qualify what I will and won't attempt, I'll add that I'm in general not to squeamish when it comes to towing and have even towed a pop up trailer up and down the Shaffer trail with an S-10 blazer when we were camping in Canyonlands on the white rim trail.

As for national parks, Bryce doesn't seem to have many large spots so if you hit during busy times you'll probably end up outside the park. Yellowstone other than fishing bridge has started limiting total length to 40 if you call to make reservations. GC South rim tends to only let larger rigs into Trailer Village which is just a parking lot. While you can get larger units into Yosemite, the spots for larger rigs tend to be limited which makes getting a spot even tougher in a park that tends to be crowded and hard to get in much of the year. When we were camped in Humbolt redwood forest last fall, folks actually came out and lined up to watch and see if we would be able to get out when we left. I guess even relatively small trailers are considered large there.

In the end, it seems to depend on where you like to camp. If you're looking for a spot with hookups, it will probably be much like a parking lot, and big rigs will probably fit easily. More primitive and isolated spots might not be an option with a bigger rig. There are even quite a few that still only allow tents. You have to figure out what you mean by camping, and what sort of compromises you're willing to live with.

Filthy Beast, your method works well if you are a local camper & get to know the few CGs you frequently use.

It doesn't work that way for the long term travelers who are only staying a few days going into CGs never visited before & unlikely to visit again.