How to reserve a 2025 Rocky Mountain National Park backcountry camping permit

Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) boasts over 415 square miles of pristine alpine and subalpine terrain, with over 300+ miles of hiking trails contained within it.

Up until 2009, just less than 3,000 of the park’s nearly 266,000 acres were technically declared ‘wilderness’ areas. That changed when then Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar dedicated the official Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness Area, which now encompasses nearly 250,000 acres within the park.

That’s 95% of the entire park!

That wilderness area offers second to none protection and designation to the lands within the park, lands that whose ruggedness were deemed special enough to earn National Park status from President Woodrow Wilson back in 1915. In other words, the mountains, lakes, and meadows that stood out to those generations ago are now protected in ways that purposefully limit human access to make sure they maintain.

That doesn’t mean you can’t go see them, or camp near them, however – you just need to make sure you’ve got the right permit!

Backcountry camping within RMNP must be done in one of the 260 designated campsites, and permits are required for all use (as well as dashtags for your vehicle). The following will help you make sure you’ve got what you need at the right time to land permits for your trip.

Important Dates

• March 1st, 2025: At 8:00 AM MST on March 1st, permits go on sale through Recreation.gov. It’s something of a derby process – meaning all sites for all peak-season dates are open to anyone – and it’s a first come, first book process. Peak season is May 1st through October 31st.
• April 30th, 2025: This marks the end of the ‘Winter Camping Season,’ where permits are available only by walk-up at the Wilderness Office. Just because there’s snow everywhere doesn’t mean you can’t camp in RMNP backcountry, it just requires a whole different level of prep and permitting.

Plan Ahead

• Create a Recreation.gov account well in advance of the 8:00 AM MST start time on March 1st. Waiting to set up your account until that moment will cost you vital minutes in the initial booking process.
• Familiarize yourself with the RMNP backcountry maps. For a hard copy map, I suggest picking up National Geographic’s Trails Illustrated #200 (Rocky Mountain National Park) and getting to know each of the regions of the park, their features, their perks, their relative elevations, and local water sources. You should also do your research on the RMNP Wilderness Permits site that features vital info like the Wilderness Campsite Map and the Snow & Campsite Details spreadsheet. That latter link is crucial to your booking process, since it includes info such as the average date each campsite is out from underneath the blankets of snow that cover it each winter. Not all parts of the part thaw out at the same time, so factor that in to your planning schedule.
• Get your numbers right before March 1st. When the permit booking opens, you’ll need to know your precise Group Size, the precise dates of your desired trip, and which Starting Area the sites you are seeking are located in.
• Do your research on the individual sites once you’ve picked your desired destinations. Larger camping areas like those at Sandbeach Lake, for instance, have multiple sites – 4 individual and 1 group. In theory, that means that five different permits could be issued to camp there on any given night, with each ‘individual’ party containing up to 7 people. If you’re aiming for more solitude on your trip, aim for a site that only has 1 site on-location so that your party is the only one there – like Pear Lake, for instance. Of course, the fewer sites at each location means that only one party can be there any given night, so you’ll likely have to be a bit more flexible on which date you’re trying to go there since those permits book up quicker.
• Figure out which is more important to you: date range, or location. If you’re coming to Colorado for a week in July, well, fix that week as your date range and toggle between Starting Area and individual sites until you land something you want to see while you’re out here. If, like me, you’re in the area and simply want to scoot up to see a particular place whenever you can, do the inverse – fix the Starting Area and toggle between dates until you see a time when it’s open (and out of the snow) that looks like you can set your schedule around it.
• If you can cobble together some firm commitments from other group members now, do so (and include them while booking). That said, so long as the actual party does not eventually exceed 7, you should be able to modify your reservation to add them between the time of booking and the time you actually set foot on the trail. Should you so choose (and should there be availability), you can modify your actual trip and which campsites you have chosen after booking a permit, too. So, if you had your heart set on an East Inlet area trip when you scored a permit on March 1st but fell in love with a spot in Wild Basin after the fact, you can edit your trip to head to Wild Basin (if all the sites there aren’t already booked).
• Have your backup routes ready. If Pear Lake is booked up at all the times that make sense to you, you can either a) throw up your hands and not visit the RMNP backcountry at all this year, or b) quickly pivot to see if, for instance, a Bluebird Lake camping trip is available. The quicker you can move down your pecking order, the better odds you’ll land something that works for you (and if you’ve done even the smallest amount of homework beforehand, even your Plan Z is going to end up a pretty beautiful trek).
• The fee for booking a backcountry permit is $36. That’s broken down into a $6 reservation fee and $30 Wilderness Administrative Fee. If you’re going solo, it’s $36 on your chin. If you’re heading up with a trio of others, you’re each on the hook for $9, etc. That said, you’ll still have to pay the fee to enter the National Park when you arrive, less you already have a season pass or the all-park America the Beautiful Pass already in your quiver.

Important Notes

• Your online reservation is not your actual permit. It’s the right to your permit, but you still will need to pick up a physical permit from one of the two wilderness offices at the park. For permits on the east side of the park, that’s at Headquarters Wilderness Office near the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center outside Estes Park, CO. For those on the west side, that’s at the Kawuneeche Visitor Center north of Grand Lake, CO. Wilderness office hours are from 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM local time daily, and you can pick up your permit up to 30 days before your starting date.
• Maximum wilderness stays from June through September are 7 nights. From October through May, that extends to 14 nights, though you are not permitted to spend more than 21 nights in one year.
• While you can modify some parts of your reservation after booking, you cannot adjust the start date. If the availability allows, you can tack on additional dates to your reservation between the booking date and start date of your trip, or even switch to a different campsite altogether (if there’s one open during your date range). You can add or subtract members to your party, so long as you don’t exceed the 7 person maximum. However, you can’t change the starting date, which while a pain in the butt is a line in the sand for the booking process.
• The $36 Wilderness Administrative Fee is non-refundable. So, if you can’t make the trip you booked on the precise starting date, well, you’re out 36 bucks. Do the right thing and cancel if that’s the case, though, as no-showing means nobody else can use that campsite that night, either.
• CAMPFIRES ARE PROHIBITED IN THE RMNP BACKCOUNTRY. Whereas there once used to be certain particular sites where fires were allowed, the increasingly dangerous fire season conditions (and persistent problems with fires not being put out) led to the decision to restrict them in the backcountry altogether. Keep this very much in mind when you’re looking a) at early-season camping where there may still be snow on the ground and very cold temperatures, b) at sites that feature routes with creek and river crossings that could leave you wet, and c) at sites at some of the higher, more exposed elevations. Portable stoves are allowed, however.
• BE BEAR AWARE, AND BEAR PREPARED. RMNP requires you to have pre-approved hard-sided bear-resistant containers for food storage while in the backcountry, and it would behoove you to carry bear spray at all times, too.
• Your backcountry permit is not a fishing license. Fishing in the park’s lakes and streams is tremendous, and I’d highly encourage planning a trip around being able to do just that. However, you’ll need a Colorado state fishing license to legally do so, so pick one up well before your actual trip begins.
• Familiarize yourself with Leave No Trace principles before your trip. Heck, familiarize yourself with them before you even book your trip. Familiarize yourself with them right now, even.

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