CanyonLands Trip with a Group

[KewlSnoddy]

Hey all, I was trying to plan a trip to Canyonlands National Park for late May this year, and was having trouble contacting anyone regularly, so I thought maybe this route would work better.
So I am trying to go with a group of about 15-20 and we want to be able to just hike and camp, but all of the group campsites are booked. My questions are:
1. Would reserving multiple sections to go backpacking in work for all of us to camp during the night?
2. (As we are driving there from Kansas) What do you think the likelihood is of there being open campgrounds in the needles if we just showed up and tried to get 2?
3. If we decide to backpack so that we can reserve a spot, will we be able to sleep in the same spot with the whole group, and hike the same spots during the day?

Thank you for your time! I am hoping to get more information than I was able to get from one of their people emailing me. Anyone who has been to Canyonlands before and has insight, that would be super helpful!

Thanks!

 

[Aldaron]

It looks like the maximum group size for backpacking in the Needles is 7 people:

http://www.nps.gov/cany/planyourvisit/backcountrypermits.htm

I think you might have more success just finding an at-large site somewhere on BLM land, maybe on the Beef Basin road, and then breaking into smaller groups to dayhike around Canyonlands and some of the trails outside of the park.

 

[Nick]

x2 on what Aldaron says. Another thing to consider is that you aren't allowed to have multiple affiliated groups in the same canyon/area at the same time. This is to prevent large groups from breaking up for the permits but then just camping together anyway. Outside the park you should be able to find a good primitive site and then just break up into more manageable hiking groups during the days.

 

[KewlSnoddy]

Okay, sounds good. In general, does anyone have experience trying to get campsites first come-first serve? Like I said earlier, we are driving from Kansas so showing up and then not having any campsites available would be really bad. (Also, what is BLM land? Sorry, I'm a newbie when it comes to all this.)

 

[Nick]

BLM = Bureau of Land Management. They manage most of the land outside the National Park. Pretty much all of the camping you'd find on BLM land is just primitive and not reservable. There are no facilities of any kind, just fully self-sufficient camping at random spot in random places. They are often found along dirt roads at random places. Make sure to only use previously disturbed areas.

If you're not comfortable with heading out and finding primitive camping, I'm not sure what to tell you. Maybe figure something else out this year and book the group sites earlier for a later trip to Canyonlands?

 

[Bob]

15 - 20 is a huge impact on the areas you stay in...any way to break into smaller groups? then meet at certain areas, say for lunch or scenic site while doing most of the hiking in smaller groups. I'm also thinking most parks the max limit is around 7 per site? could be wrong tho.