Open for comment, with a deadline.

2 federal proposals to change how a campground is run are taking public comment right now. The agency’s own words, the day it printed as the deadline, and a comment written from the campground’s record, ready to paste.

What is on this page, and what we left off it

When a federal agency proposes to convert a campground to reservation-only, add or raise a fee, close a loop, redevelop it, change its season or hand it to a concessionaire, that is a comment period, with a deadline and a form. Those windows open and close and almost nobody who camps there hears. This page reads every Forest Service project page, the Park Service’s open-comment list, BLM’s register and the Federal Register, keeps the ones that touch camping, and prints what the agency itself wrote.

The deadline on every row is the agency’s, from its own field, never read out of a notice’s prose: the Forest Service’s comment site prints “Your comments are requested through” a date beside its form, and that sentence is both the open test and the date. A comment page that did not answer is counted as unread, never as closed.

A trail, a boat ramp, a ski lift, a timber sale with a campground inside its boundary but no camping action: refused, with the reason, and counted at right. Nothing here is a model’s reading. The rule that admitted each row and the words it rested on are printed on the row.

Listed below

Open camping windows: 2
Forest Service project pages and CARA comment pages: 1
Federal Register: 1
BLM ePlanning project pages: 0
National Park Service PEPC open-for-comment listing: 0

Each one carries the agency’s own words, a link, the deadline field and the day we read it.

Watched, and left off on purpose

Windows that have closed: 1
A camping project with no dated window: 43
A comment page that did not answer: 0
Not a recreation project: 1,053
Recreation, but no camping action: 495

1,595 projects read in all; 1,548 refused by the rule. Counted, not listed.

Source: Forest Service project pages and CARA comment pages, the Park Service’s PEPC listing, BLM ePlanning project pages and the Federal Register, each quoted verbatim and dated from its own field · Sep 10, 2026

Open now, soonest deadline first

2 windows

The agency’s sentence, the day it printed, the campgrounds it touches, and a draft that states the facts on that campground’s record and asks three questions: why, what it would cost, and when.

Sweetwater Lake Recreation Management and Development Project (SLDP)

Closes September 23, 2026

Forest Service · White River National Forest · Colorado

The USDA Forest Service, White River National Forest (WRNF) has prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft EIS) for the Sweetwater Lake Recreation Management and Development Project. The proposed action is located at Sweetwater Lake which is approximately 12 miles northwest of Dotsero, Colorado. The Responsible Official for this decision is Brian Glaspell, Forest Supervisor, White River National Forest. Four alternatives are analyzed in detail in the Draft EIS.
Forest Service, the comment page notice

The source publishes no posting dateForest Service project page for White River National Forest, Eagle Ranger DistrictRead Sep 10, 2026Deadline from CARA’s own “Your comments are requested through” field: “Your comments are requested through 9/23/2026 11:59:59 PM (Mountain Standard Time)”Admitted because the text names Sweetwater Lake Campground, a campground of ours on White River National Forest, and names recreation, on the words “Sweetwater Lake”

TouchesSweetwater Lake Campground

This campground sits in Colorado’s 3rd district, represented by Jeff Hurd (R). Public-lands grade so far: F

Read the draft and file it

Open the agency’s comment form ↗Copy the draft first. The form asks for your name and address and takes nothing from this page.

To the office that decides it · Forest Service, White River National Forest

To the Forest Service, White River National Forest:

I am writing to comment on Sweetwater Lake Recreation Management and Development Project (SLDP), and specifically about Sweetwater Lake Campground before your deadline of September 23, 2026.

Your notice reads: “The USDA Forest Service, White River National Forest (WRNF) has prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft EIS) for the Sweetwater Lake Recreation Management and Development Project. The proposed action is located at Sweetwater Lake which is approximately 12 miles northwest of Dotsero, Colorado.”
(https://www.fs.usda.gov/r02/whiteriver/projects/284162)

The nearest town is Dotsero, 11 miles away, which is who loses a weekend when this changes.

I have three questions, and I would be grateful for a plain answer to each in the decision record.

1. Why is this change proposed, and what problem at Sweetwater Lake Campground is it meant to solve?
2. What would it cost campers in fees, in lost walk-up sites, or in nights, and what would it cost the Forest Service not to do it?
3. When would it take effect, and when would the public see the decision and the record of comments?

I am not writing to second-guess anyone who works there. Public campgrounds are where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and a change to how one is run deserves an explanation to the people who own it.

— Sent about Sweetwater Lake Campground via campanac.com

Subject: Comment on Sweetwater Lake Recreation Management and Development Project (SLDP) (Sweetwater Lake Campground)

Travel Management; National Forest System Lands

Closes September 23, 2026

Forest Service · every national forest

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is initiating an environmental impact statement and rulemaking to revise the Forest Service's travel management regulations, 36 CFR part 212. The proposed action would establish a uniform national policy favoring increased access while simplifying regulatory requirements and preserving local decision-making. The proposed access rule would establish a national policy with a presumption that existing roads, trails, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes and points on National Forest System lands are open to appropriate public use unless closure or restriction is required by applicable law, valid existing rights, or another governing…
Forest Service, the Federal Register abstract

Published Aug 24, 2026Federal Register, Forest ServiceRead Sep 10, 2026Deadline from the Federal Register’s comment_end_date: “Comments due 2026-09-23 (comment_end_date, Federal Register API)”Admitted because a sentence of the agency’s description names camping and an action, on the words “camping”

A national rule: it touches every campground the agency runs and names none, so we link none.

Read the draft and file it

Open the agency’s comment form ↗Copy the draft first. The form asks for your name and address and takes nothing from this page.

To the office that decides it · Forest Service

To the Forest Service:

I am writing to comment on Travel Management; National Forest System Lands before your deadline of September 23, 2026.

Your Federal Register notice reads: “The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is initiating an environmental impact statement and rulemaking to revise the Forest Service's travel management regulations, 36 CFR part 212.”
(https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/24/2026-17211/travel-management-national-forest-system-lands, published August 24, 2026)

I have three questions, and I would be grateful for a plain answer to each in the decision record.

1. Why is this change proposed, and what problem at these campgrounds is it meant to solve?
2. What would it cost campers in fees, in lost walk-up sites, or in nights, and what would it cost the Forest Service not to do it?
3. When would it take effect, and when would the public see the decision and the record of comments?

I am not writing to second-guess anyone who works there. Public campgrounds are where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and a change to how one is run deserves an explanation to the people who own it.

— Sent about Travel Management; National Forest System Lands via campanac.com

Subject: Comment on Travel Management; National Forest System Lands

Does a comment do anything?

1,285

readers our roadless comment engine has handed to the federal comment form on docket FS-2025-0001, by its own ledger, 306 of them in the last seven days. That is a count of handoffs to the form, not of comments the agency logged; the agency publishes that count itself when the docket closes. What a comment does is put a question in the decision record that the agency has to answer in writing.

Source: The fleet’s own outbound ledger on docket FS-2025-0001, the roadless rule, read from plan_outbound_counts in our database · Sep 10, 2026

What we left off

1 camping window closed in the last six months, dated below from the same field. 43 camping projects carry no dated window on the agency’s own comment page today: a project being developed, in analysis, or past its period, and we do not guess which. 0 comment pages did not answer when we read them and will be read again tomorrow.

1,548 projects refused by the rule: 1,053 not a recreation project; 495 recreation, but no camping action. A project the gate refused is one whose name, purpose and description name no campground, campsite, camping, recreation fee, reservation change, concession or season change, and whose text names no campground of ours on that unit.

June 1, 2026Notice of Realty Action: Recreation and Public Purposes Act Classification; Rapides and LaSalle Parishes, LouisianaBureau of Land Management

How this list is built

Every source behind this page · 4

Forest Service project pages and CARA comment pages: 964 projects read; 42 passed the camping gate; 1 open today · Sep 10, 2026

Federal Register: 514 projects read; 2 passed the camping gate; 1 open today · Sep 10, 2026

BLM ePlanning project pages: 102 projects read; 3 passed the camping gate; 0 open today · Sep 10, 2026

National Park Service PEPC open-for-comment listing: 15 projects read; 0 passed the camping gate; 0 open today · Sep 10, 2026

Every forest’s project page on fs.usda.gov is walked daily and each project the gate passes gets one read of its CARA comment page, where the deadline is the agency’s own “Your comments are requested through” field. The Park Service’s PEPC open-for-comment listing supplies its review-end date. BLM’s register names candidate projects and each project’s own page supplies the participation period. The Federal Register supplies its comment_end_date. Campgrounds are joined by name inside the same unit, or unit-wide where the docket says so; where neither holds the row says we could not name them. The campgrounds that are closed and the ones that still take walk-ups are the other halves of the same argument.