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Soooo, it looks like the online reservation system won't allow backcountry reservations to be made for at least the first half of May. I didn't go beyond that because those dates get out of my window of opportunity....plus bugs.
My memory is that in recent years, the park has not permitted reservations during the window when ice out could still be in doubt, because it makes so many people scramble for revised reservations. Is that what's going on with this? Do they wait until an ice out date is pretty much beyond doubt before they open up those early May dates?
Unfortunately I have a really narrow window of opportunity that falls between "the ice melted!" and "I have to pick up m daughter from college". That's glass half-empty. Here's glass half-full: I know right when I want to go....
Yeah they set a default start date but will open early if conditions allow for it.
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They also have a thing for opening reservations on the Thursday for trips starting on Friday (if I'm remembering correctly, which maybe I'm not). They won't open reservations when "we can see ice out coming", they'll open reservations when they've confirmed ice-out with a flyover and declared an opening date.
Before that they ended up having to contact hundreds of people to change their bookings - and then maybe do it again - and again, and they finally just threw in the towel on that approach. Before *that* they used to just trust people to make up their own minds about whether or not to go camping in the current conditions instead of deciding that on our behalf. I know there are some campers who are still pretty salty about being 'nannied' to the current extent by the park administration.
Last edited by Uppa (2/02/2022 5:11 pm)
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my ground hog told me early spring,, i have robins at my house,, what do they know?
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Thanks for the replies, everybody. I'll keep an eye on the Opeongo ice-out cam, and keep my fingers limbered up to make a last minute reservation!
Thread StarterDave, if AP doesn't open in time you might consider Queen Elizabeth Wilderness - stunningly beautiful area with an earlier than Algonquin ice-out. No reservations were required last time I checked and mostly deserted in spring.
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