When fall rolls out its horizon-to-horizon canvas of colors, too many people might miss the best theater seats to see the show if they already have packed the tent and sleeping bags away in the attic, parked and winterized the camper, and anticipated the next s’mores fest might not be held until May.
The reality is, mothballing the camping gear before the snow flies is premature, and far too limiting on your outdoors enjoyment opportunities. The stars, the campfires, the hikes, and the smell of coffee brewing in the early morning mist — that delightful sensory array doesn’t shut down when Labor Day arrives and the kids go back to school.
Both Ohio and Michigan offer fall and winter camping options, with cabins, yurts, sites for RVs and pop-up campers, and places for the hardy souls who still contend that real camping has to involve a tent and sleeping on the ground.
On those often comfortable fall days and their accompanying crispy, cool nights, historically the crowds have been fairly thin at the campgrounds during the week, and less than thick on the weekends, except when special fall/harvest/Halloween-centric events bring in a manageable throng.
“We’ve seen an increase in fall camping in the last few years, and our September and October weekends are actually pretty busy, especially when there are fall-themed or Halloween-related events,” said Heidi Hetzel-Evans, communications manager for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Parks and Watercraft. “Those have become very popular.”
She hopes the trend is moving in the direction of more fall campers in general, regardless of whether special events are on the schedule, or not. During fall in the Midwest, nature stages a display that will relegate most other performances to secondary status.
“When we get those warm, sunny fall days, and the evening weather is in the 50s and 60s, you can’t beat being outdoors, enjoying autumn’s changing landscape, and then sitting around that campfire,” she said. “We get some beautiful weather in the fall — not too hot, not too cold — and a lot of folks just want to be outside.”
Hetzel-Evans said more families are organizing group camping outings in the fall, when lower occupancy rates at the campgrounds let them secure a number of sites close together. She added that tailgating to watch Ohio State football games has also become a “thing” at some campgrounds, where a flat-screen TV is mounted outside, camp chairs are set in a crude theatrical arc, the grill is going, and the campfire is close by.
Ohio has 59 campgrounds with more than 9,000 campsites. Hetzel-Evans said the ODNR starts winterizing some of its campgrounds around Nov. 1, but she stressed that the camping opportunities do not shut down.
“If a certain campground has three loops of campsites, we might winterize two sections and leave the third loop open all fall and winter,” she said. “Camping never closes down.”
She added that some campgrounds will see a surge in campers during fall hunting seasons as deer and small game hunters look for a base of operation closer to the large tracts of public land open to hunting. The number of all-season campers has increased, too, as the equipment has evolved.
“Sometimes we tend to forget how big camping and hunting are, and we’ve actually seen some parks fill up quite a bit with hunters,” she said. “That is a whole different audience, but with the style of RVs and campers that are available now, and the way they are insulated and heated, weather issues are not as big a thing as they used to be for families that just enjoy camping.”
Michigan also offers a multitude of fall camping options, and more than a dozen of Michigan's state parks stay open all winter to host cold-weather campers. The state’s three-season and all-season parks offer campgrounds, cabins, lodges, and yurts, and most of these parks are in close proximity to popular hunting areas, snowmobile trails, and opportunities for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.
To view a list of Michigan’s state park and state forest campgrounds and those open for fall and winter camping, visit michigan.gov/dnr and click “Camping” under the “Things to Do” tab. For information on camping at Ohio state parks in the fall and winter months, visit parks.ohiodnr.gov/camping.
First Published October 24, 2019, 4:39 p.m.
