The Porkies turn next week, and Big Sur's road is open.

The catalogue got cleaner, and the filters got something behind them.

• One campground, one listing. Ninety-eight campgrounds were showing up twice, usually because the federal registry keeps the same place under an old id and a newer one. Each is a single listing now, with the working booking link and the real site count. Morefield at Mesa Verde and Daisy Farm on Isle Royale also moved to where the tents are. Anything you saved carries over by itself.
• Filters that know the answer. We read the campsite records each agency publishes and put what they say on the listing: whether dogs are allowed, which sites have hookups, how long a rig fits. The dog-friendly filter went from 671 campgrounds to 3,444, and a new Cabins & lookouts filter finds 563 places with a roof, 73 of them fire lookouts you can rent.
• Pages for the way people search. "Camping near" pages for 51 cities and lakes, like Portland, and state pages by kind of trip, like dog-friendly camping in Oregon. Every listing now links to the ones it belongs on.
• Share the campground, not a picture. The share button sends the link, and it arrives as a card made for that place.
• The Campgrounder Code. A short creed for leaving a site better than you found it. Sign it on your profile and three stewardship patches go on your record.

Big Sur's road is open. Five of its campgrounds are not.

• Big Sur. Highway 1 is open from Carmel to Cambria and every Plaskett Fire evacuation order has been lifted, with the fire 97% contained. The Forest Service fire-area closure still covers the south coast, and Kirk Creek, Plaskett Creek, Limekiln, Ponderosa and Memorial stay closed inside it. Expect crews and heavy equipment on the road.
• Mt. Hood, Clackamas side. The Austin Fire closure was cut back on Sept 16. Timothy Lake is open again. Riverside, Rainbow, Raab, Riverford and Bagby campgrounds and Bagby Hot Springs are still inside the closure, which runs through Dec 31 unless it is lifted sooner.
• Cle Elum River, Washington. A smaller Three Queens order replaced the August one on Sept 18. Kachess and Wish Poosh are open; Salmon La Sac, Owhi, Red Mountain and Cle Elum River stay closed through Oct 31.
• Little Giant Fire, Washington. About 172,700 acres and 81% contained. Pine Flats, Graham Harbor, Junior Point and Snowberry Bowl stay closed under the Forest Service order through Oct 31.
• Washington's statewide burn ban runs to noon on Wednesday, Sept 30, and the state can end it or extend it. Check the rule where you're staying before you light anything.
• Boundary Waters. The closure order runs through Oct 1. The Bear Trap, Thumb and Wolfpack fire areas on the LaCroix district are still closed, and the Forest Service is telling permit holders seven days before their entry date.

Porcupine Mountains, a week ahead of the color.

The western Upper Peninsula gets Michigan's first hard frosts, so its sugar maples turn before anywhere else in the state. The 2026 forecasts put peak in the Porkies from about September 28 to October 6. This weekend is the leading edge, with the first reds up on the ridges and the campground not yet full of people who read the same forecast.

The park holds one of the largest stands of old-growth northern hardwood left in the Midwest. Walk out to the Lake of the Clouds overlook in the morning, when the light comes in low across the escarpment, and go up the Summit Peak tower in the afternoon. The modern campground has hot showers, electric sites and room for the dog. Nights up there are already cold, so bring the warm bag.

Worth planning a campsite around.

• Sep 26 – 27Lincoln City Fall Kite Festival, on the Oregon coast. This year it runs from the Chinook Winds grounds while the D River site is rebuilt, a short drive from Devil's Lake.
• Sep 27Oyster Run, the one-day motorcycle gathering in Anacortes, about seven miles from Deception Pass.
• Oct 1 – 4Deerfield Fair, the big agricultural fair in southern New Hampshire, five miles from Pawtuckaway.
• Oct 2 – 4Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, three free days in Golden Gate Park. Sleep on Mount Tamalpais at Pantoll, about eleven miles out.
• Oct 3Ruidoso Aspenfest, New Mexico's aspen weekend, with Saddle Campground above Cloudcroft about 26 miles away.
• Oct 4 – 11Fryeburg Fair, Maine's big one, 23 miles from White Lake in Tamworth.
• Oct 8 – 11Suwannee Roots Revival in north Florida, with the springs at Ichetucknee about 24 miles off.

Distances are straight-line miles from the campground. Dates come from each organizer, so check their page before you go.

Campgrounds on Campgrounder whose own records say dogs are welcome. Last week the listings showed 671. Nothing about those campgrounds changed. The information had been sitting in the federal campsite records the whole time, one row per campsite, and nobody had rolled it up to the campground you actually search for.