What a waste

And yet the site next to us was never occupied in the four days were were there.

Nice for you, though.  :-)

My guess is that a lot of people-almost all–are coming from a long away away. flights get cancelled, the drive takes longer than expected. If the reservists show up a day late and the site has been taken, and they’ve paid for it…what then? What if the park gives away the site at 7 pm…and the reservists show up at 8? etc.

At Yosemite, the sites do not go empty. the system works pretty well. when the park says, full up–it is. they do open sites up for same day cancellations as I recall., at 5 pm. at Tuolumne. so you can show up and take that chance.

Yeah really. I would have been happy!!! No one else around.. at a campground!!

I’m unsure how the reservations work in GC or DV, but when I reserved a campsite in Wawona for a group family camping week, I paid the entire reservation up front, and was informed to make sure to notify the campground if I was going to be late in arriving at my campsite, for the reason that my reservation would be forfeited if I didn’t let them know what was going on. It is a waste for someone to pay for a site and then not use it, but from the perspective of the park, it is not a big deal. The site was reserved, and paid for (in all likelihood), so the fact that another person/group could not use that site is not really something to be concerned about. If anything, it’s great that those people who paid for the site were generous enough to pay out of their own pocket to provide other campers with a little less population density in the campground!

Washington state parks give the site away noon the next day if you don’t show up

Some National Forest campgrounds say that if the site is paid for that’s all they care about.  Yeah, a waste.

I’ve always canceled if plans change. Once when a holiday weekend fell through at the last minute I made sure to even call the park since I knew there would be someone that would be grateful to find a campsite and the automated system might be delayed in updating. To not cancel is just selfish. Stepping off soapbox now.

From the Nat’l Parks Website (https://www.recreation.gov/rules-reservation-policies)

No-Shows
Overnight and Day-Use Facilities: A no-show customer is one who does not arrive at a campground and does not cancel the reservation by check-out time on the day after the scheduled arrival date (or for day-use facilities, by check-in time the day of arrival). Staff will hold a campsite until check-out time on the day following the arrival date and will hold group day-use facilities until check-in time on the arrival date.
No-shows are assessed $20.00 service fee and forfeit the first night’s recreation fee for a campsite or forfeit the entire day-use fee for a day-use facility.

Seems like the policy in place to maximize a site’s usefulness is in place, same as for Yosemite. Looks like the campground rangers were falling asleep on the job – or maybe there were no people waiting to get into a site?

Probably the campground host was limiting their rounds. I noticed that last year. Some places didn’t have their usual hosts.  The big thing is that waiting for autocancel potentially knocks people out needing not only that first night but most of the weekend. For the  parks around here that would mean having it unusable until 3 in the afternoon next day. The popular parks in this area are often full over the 4th, very busy Memorial day, divorced dads weekend and labor day. Even the first come first serve can fill up by noon.

Also note that this is the same system many agencies are using this summer for wilderness permits.  grrr.

I believe the wilderness permit system is a little better since they are more actively managed at the pertinent ranger stations.

I think the increasing emphasis on having to make reservations to get even basic campsites is forcing people to plan farther and farther ahead, and then those plans change and the penalty for NOT cancelling is not worth the effort.  People just don’t bother.  Yes, it’s rude and thoughtless.  But  as others have noted, it does cut down on the crowding.

Do they get refunds if they cancel? I can see not bothering if the whole fee is forfeit.

At Denali they used to restrict some of the site to large RVS only. Even if there were 20 vacant spots, they wouldn’t let smaller vehicles or tenters use these spots, even if it was already 11pm. There are some pretty silly public land mgmt policies.