30 day trip out West - Dare we without reservations?

[scottz]

I am in the early stages of planning a family trip West for June 2014. We will have 30 travels days. It will be my wife, two sons (7/11) and our dog.

It would be nice to camp as we travel so we can set our own schedule. Camp as we travel means not making prior reservations; dry camp, stealth camp, or find a campground is all in play. I would really appreciate everyones opinion if we could reasonably get away with camping as we travel to the below list of destinations without making reservations.

Please share any specific advise as it relates to camping in these areas:
Day1 - Leave home in Minnesota
- Denver, CO
- North Rim Grand Canyon
- Hoover Dam
- Las Vegas (Casino Campground?)
- Death Valley
- Sequoia National Forest
- Yosemite
- San Francisco
- Lake Tahoe
- Sparks, NV (stay with Family)
Day 30 - Return home, MN

[Scott16]

jefe 4x4 wrote:
Buzz (Eric) is baaack!
If you fear not finding a spot, make a reservation in the morning before you pull into an area.
As far as stealth camping, some on here (like Sleepy) have elevated it to a fine art. We have done a lot of stealth camping and you learn to chose well. Otherwise, you may get in trouble. In big cities, we camp right on the street with the shades pulled down. Of course, it's only two consenting adults with no children or pets. I can't even tell you what the perimeters are. You look and decide whether to stop or move on if everything doesn't seem right. One thing is to pull in late and leave early. Stop in a county park to make dinner(if eating in) and move to your domicile location for the night with a quick move to the box. Plain site is good. Marinas are good. County campgrounds are generally good. I think the big thing is to recognize a good site and take advantage of the opportunity. I have found a new map support in Pocket Earth, basically interactive maps of the world/countries/states you can download endlessly for $2.99. Yes, two dollars, ninety-nine cents, US. Once you pay the fee, you can go back and keep downloading the areas you are currently focusing on. They have put Nat. Geo's expensive mapping program out of business. This has been a boon to us on our I-pad. I have been able to find boondocking side roads using this service. It is just great.
Saddle bag lk., which we camped at at the end of Sept. this year may not be open in early June, depending on the snowpack this winter. A fun website about Tioga Pass open/close;
http://www.monobasinresearch.org/data/tiogapass.htm
There are private and public campgrounds on the west side of Yosemite.

Here are my takes on your other destinations:
- Denver, CO
many places to camp around the fringe.
- North Rim Grand Canyon
it's almost uninhabited; plenty of dry camping down a few dirt roads. It's just very hard to get to. It's out of the way of almost everything.
- Hoover Dam
Nothing in proximity, and in June I would simply drive thru and find somewhere at a higher elevation.
- Las Vegas (Casino Campground?)
Circus circus has an in-town campground, but again, June?
- Death Valley
figgeddaboutit in June unless you are a survivalist.
- Sequoia National Forest
is a long way from anywhere with a long drive into Sequoia N.P. (if that's your goal) If just the Forest, plenty of dry camping/boondocking.
- Yosemite
Unless you do like Buzz did and camp in December (when there are no reservations) you definitely want reservations inside the park.
- San Francisco
You are SOL.
- Lake Tahoe
plenty of campgrounds of all kinds. Again, June can be an iffy month if above 8K ft.
- Sparks, NV (stay with Family)
jefe

I've seen snow at lake Tahoe on Memorial day weekend one time around 1979-80, it can happen at 8k.
Scott

[RoadRangerChip]

My secret for commercial campground stays is to get on the road by 9 am and off by 4pm. We miss morning work traffic and very rarely have I not been able to get a site in late afternoon. When I do Las Vegas we like Sam's Town casino and RV park. They even have a bus to shuttle you into the strip if you want to go. I do make reservations for weekend Holiday travels.

[pawatt]

We may call a night ahead esp on weekends but Don't make reservations way ahead of time. This has worked for us even on the busy Oregon coast.

[scolew325]

just outside of SFO is the Petaluma KOA. I highly suggest staying there while in the SFO area. My family and I stayed there and was quite nice. Store, laundry, SFO private tours from KOA, pool, playground, Hookups and all. Whenever we go back we will stay there again. If you plan on touring the city, DO NOT drive the camper into town due to no parking and traffic.
When we were at Yosemite we had to make reservations.

[bb_94401]

Free form trips are much more fun and you make much more interesting discoveries.

Most weekends at popular places in California will be a zoo (all those people got to go somewhere :), so if you can be there on a Sunday or Monday you will be more successful. Places like Yosemite, especially in the valley are only nice, really early or late in the season, as all the people ruin the experience. Are you going there as part of a check list or are you exploring?

The north rim of the Grand Canyon is spectacular with significantly less people than the south rim. Sequoia/Kings Canyon has some nice redwoods, however you can see nice redwoods at Big Trees SP outside of Arnold, CA on Hwy 4 with less people. Great scenery and places to camp along Ebbets pass (hwy 4), Sonora pass (hwy 108), and Tioga pass (hwy 120).

While the valley of Yosemite is impressive, the Sierra NF just south of there, has great views, hikes and lots of places to camp with significantly less people (east of the town of North Fork, minarets rd and FS 81 toward Squaw Dome and Mammoth Pool). If you do go to Kings Canyon, nice dispersed camping can be found further into the Sequoia NF in the Buck Rock area (east of hwy 198).

Around San Francisco it is a zoo also, that is why I moved to a place with 7 million less people. Just north of the SFO airport is the county Oyster Point Marina in South San Francisco. You can park there for 72 hours. Most of the parks fill up Thursday and Friday night. If you are there mid week, the San Mateo County Parks are nice (Huddard and Sam McDonald). If you are into stealth, there are a lot of hiking Trail Heads in the Bay Area that make great places to overnight. A nice one is on the way from San Jose to Livermore (via hwy 130 and mines rd). This road goes over Mt Hamilton before dropping into a very empty area and eventually into Livermore. Just up the road from the Salt Creek campground on the west side. Mt Hamilton has an observatory at the top worth checking out with nice exhibits inside and with great views of the south bay outside.

Tahoe might be worth a day trip from reno/sparks on Hwy 431 past the Mt Rose ski area. If you have the time heading to Sparks, take hwy 49 vs I-80 over the Sierra and stay in the Gold Lakes area before going over Yuba pass. While popular it won’t have anything like that of the places in the tahoe basin.

What enables you to find all these places are having a good mapping program running on your laptop or if you have good eyes on a tablet or mobile device. You are never lost, just not where you want to be :B. Down load everything as reception isn’t great once out of the major towns. Aside from the Forest Service and its nice maps and dispersed and developed campgrounds. There is also the BLM which also has various National Monuments and other recreational areas for camping in the west, as well. The BLM District Offices ( under “our Offices / Centers) have maps and local recreation resources that most over look (three new BLM CG that a lightly used east of Hollister, CA that make a more pleasant journey into the central valley. Plus, these offices and FS district ranger stations are a good source of information about roads and route conditions. If you add their location to your mapping program and the downloaded satellite data, you can have lots of choices where to stay in either developed CG or boondocking if the CG is full, by going further down the FS or BLM road and finding a nice spot for yourself.

Enjoy your trip.

[Camper_Jeff___K]

Make a list of the possible campsites in each area you plan to visit. Start with the one you wanted and then go to pre planned alternate sites if full. During the summer, it should be fairly easy to get a spot Sunday through Thursday. On weekends, forget the popular destination places. Go to the popular spots during the week and the not popular spots for your weekends to minimize your chances of full campgrounds. Even stay at an RV Park if nothing else is available. Have a good trip.

[revump]

It depends on how flexible you are

[scottz]

You guys really came through as I hoped, many thanks for all of your replies. I will use the information provided to help work out the details.

Some advice was repeated.
Not stretching the extra 75-100 miles when tired. This is a big reason why I don't want to be on a schedule. I don't want the fight the pressures of getting somewhere on time. If we need a down day with no driving, I want to take a down day with no driving.

Death Valley. About 9 years ago I traveled through Death Valley when driving from Vegas to Sparks in a rental van, this was a very enjoyable trip. I just looked up the ave temps for June, low of 81 high of 110. My thought was this would again be a day drive with stops as time/desire/weather permits, but overnights would be outside the park. Worst case scenario, we simply drive through, best case we enjoy an entire day there. Do you see any problems with this plan?

Please continue to post, I will continue to read.

[dadwolf2]

Yosemite would be my biggest concern and I wouldn't want to go to Death Valley in June unless you don't mind average highs of 110 and no shade. Just outside North Rim park boundaries there are plenty of places to camp. I would get a map of the area with the forest service roads on it.

[Dennis_M_M]

As other said we rarely make reservations, only if we want a specific place in a busy season.

Best spot we have found close to Denver is Cherry Creek Note that you need a daily pass in addition to the camping fee.

[gat75]

We just completed a 8000 mi trip in Sept/Oct to the west that included visiting Hoover Dam. DW & I highly recommend staying at Canyon Trails RV at Boulder City; (located next to H Dam). One of the onsite owners (Mike) treated us like royalty. Check out the H Dam museum in town at a local motel; (costs are 0). Another bonus was the herd of big horn sheep that came out at dark at the city park.Not sure how busy this park would be at the time you are going. I would suspect any thing around there would be booked, (due to proximity of H Dam & Lake Meed). Vegas is just a short drive away.

[rexlion]

Some Yosemite NP CGs are first come, first served (no reservations). If you get to the CG on a Sunday morning or early in the week morning, you stand a good chance of getting a site. If you want to stay in the valley, though, reservations are the only way. This year, a couple of weeks before leaving home, I was able to pick up a Sat and Sun at 2 separate valley campsites... I had been checking on and off for months, though.

[jefe_4x4]

Buzz (Eric) is baaack!
If you fear not finding a spot, make a reservation in the morning before you pull into an area.
As far as stealth camping, some on here (like Sleepy) have elevated it to a fine art. We have done a lot of stealth camping and you learn to chose well. Otherwise, you may get in trouble. In big cities, we camp right on the street with the shades pulled down. Of course, it's only two consenting adults with no children or pets. I can't even tell you what the perimeters are. You look and decide whether to stop or move on if everything doesn't seem right. One thing is to pull in late and leave early. Stop in a county park to make dinner(if eating in) and move to your domicile location for the night with a quick move to the box. Plain site is good. Marinas are good. County campgrounds are generally good. I think the big thing is to recognize a good site and take advantage of the opportunity. I have found a new map support in Pocket Earth, basically interactive maps of the world/countries/states you can download endlessly for $2.99. Yes, two dollars, ninety-nine cents, US. Once you pay the fee, you can go back and keep downloading the areas you are currently focusing on. They have put Nat. Geo's expensive mapping program out of business. This has been a boon to us on our I-pad. I have been able to find boondocking side roads using this service. It is just great.
Saddle bag lk., which we camped at at the end of Sept. this year may not be open in early June, depending on the snowpack this winter. A fun website about Tioga Pass open/close;
http://www.monobasinresearch.org/data/tiogapass.htm
There are private and public campgrounds on the west side of Yosemite.

Here are my takes on your other destinations:
- Denver, CO
many places to camp around the fringe.
- North Rim Grand Canyon
it's almost uninhabited; plenty of dry camping down a few dirt roads. It's just very hard to get to. It's out of the way of almost everything.
- Hoover Dam
Nothing in proximity, and in June I would simply drive thru and find somewhere at a higher elevation.
- Las Vegas (Casino Campground?)
Circus circus has an in-town campground, but again, June?
- Death Valley
figgeddaboutit in June unless you are a survivalist.
- Sequoia National Forest
is a long way from anywhere with a long drive into Sequoia N.P. (if that's your goal) If just the Forest, plenty of dry camping/boondocking.
- Yosemite
Unless you do like Buzz did and camp in December (when there are no reservations) you definitely want reservations inside the park.
- San Francisco
You are SOL.
- Lake Tahoe
plenty of campgrounds of all kinds. Again, June can be an iffy month if above 8K ft.
- Sparks, NV (stay with Family)
jefe

[monkey44]

stickdog wrote:
My only suggestion is stop early, don't push that extra 75-100 miles. We stop early at near empty campgrounds then watch them fill up.

This is very good advice.

We've made numerous trips all over the west, for years,, months at a time. We never make reservations - but the holiday weekends are tough in popular areas. So, if you are on a tight schedule, or really, really want a specific Cg, re-think that and reserve.

Almost all national parks have surrounding national forests or BLM land. THe parks get full often in summer, but rarely do the forest and BLM lands. It depends if you want in the park, or can camp outside and travel in.

If you stop early, you will very often get a site even in busy areas. I would plan to 'take a chance' on most camping areas, and when you decide there is one you simply can't possible miss, then decide on a reservation. Reservation puts you on a schedule you can't change easily - that's the problem (besides the expense) with reserving.

Enjoy the trip - sound like a great adventure.

One note on SF -- Golden Gate Park has an unbelievable aquarium and science building. It's expensive ($27 a person?) BUT, last time I was there, policy was the first Wednesday (I think) of each month, everyone FREE. So, check that out, the free days, and it's well worth a tour, especially with kids.

[JoeChiOhki]

Summer, you better already be making your reservations, or you won't get any sites. This is why I do my traveling in the fall after the kiddies are back in school :).