By: MJ + PJ
We were able to online book our first night, a Thursday, at Banff National Park in Canada. Turns out it was a busy long weekend there at the end of June, being Canada Day. You need to keep national holidays on the radar for these sorts of things, which we did not in this case. Having a campsite or accommodation booked means you can arrive to camp late without having to hurry your day’s activities.
Remaining optimistic we roll into our booked site and talk to the staff member. We explain our scenario and asked about if there was any “waiting list” or notification of cancelled sites like we experienced at Yellowstone NP in 2017. There isn’t, but that is no surprise. Most North American state and national parks have an online campsite reservation portal so it’s best to book ahead. We were not too sure what day exactly we were arriving so delayed our booking.
The staff member says “If you go about 10min north there is a first come first served campground. If you get there around 11am when people are leaving, then you might get a site. If you get a site stay as long as you want.” Good advice, but our game was on for this scenario:
- We had already scouted out non-reservable sites on the radar.
- 11am? If I am up and have left sites by 7 or 8am, then other people do too. In addition there are some people who despise camping on busy weekends.
- Don’t tempt us to stay as long as we want. We could be here for a month.
Since MJ was hankering for a run as it had been over a week since the Napa forest run, he ran the 7km there the next morning with all sorts of gear in hand – blank cheques, debit card if cash needed, pencil, bear spray, phone. On the way there he got some mountaintops lit by the morning sun photos on the way!
Arriving at 6:30am to scout over the 43 sites, he grabbed a site ticket. The first site had an idling car in it and an empty campsite – they were either arriving or leaving. As he walked up the road they drove away leaving an empty site. Sensing there may be others, he ran the small 43 site loop and found another site that was further from the road and more protected. Bingo. Two more nights at Banff on their Canada Day long weekend.
We used a similar strategy at The Grand Tetons in Wyoming in 2017. We woke up early and packed up camp to drive to try to get a site at Jenny Lake. Odds were similar because that was Labor Day weekend in the US. Timed our southern exit of Yellowstone to receive Junior Ranger badge at 8am sharp, and were rolling in to Jenny Lake campground at about 9:45am with another optimistic camper. We both secured sites.
The early bird gets the worm, so be hungry.
