About this permit
Rocky Mountain National Park is a designated-site wilderness with no dispersed camping, and the Longs Peak trail carries four of those sites: Goblins Forest (6 sites, 1.2 miles, 10,120 feet), Moore Park (2 sites, 1.7 miles, 9,760 feet), Battle Mountain Group (1 site, 2.8 miles, 11,000 feet) and the Boulderfield (9 sites, 6 miles, 12,760 feet). Every one has a privy.
The fee structure is unusual and in your favour: $36 is a Wilderness Administrative Fee for each trip reservation (not each night and not each person), non-refundable, from May 1 to October 31. Winter reservations cost $10. Walk-ins pay the same $36. Park entrance fees are separate. Summer reservations for the 2026 season opened March 1 at 8:00 am MST on Recreation.gov, and requests must be made at least three days before your first camping date. Between November 1 and April 30 the park accepts no reservation requests at all.
Party size: individual sites take 1 to 7 people, group sites take 8 to 12, and groups over seven may not camp in neighbouring individual sites. They must use a group site or split up and camp at least a mile apart. On this trail the only group site is Battle Mountain. Stay limits are seven nights June through September, fourteen nights October through May with no more than 21 total per year, and no more than three consecutive nights in one camp area.
Bear canisters are required from April 1 to October 31: a hard-sided, commercially made, carry-in/carry-out canister, with no other method permitted. The park applies this to wilderness areas below tree line and, explicitly, in the Boulder Field of Longs Peak, due to recurring wildlife incidents. Store the canister 70 adult steps (200 feet) from your campsite. Campfires are prohibited park-wide in the wilderness; portable stoves only.
Permits and dashtags must be picked up in person at a park Wilderness Office, open 7 am to 3:30 pm daily, and a permit not collected by noon on the first day of your trip is cancelled and reissued. One good side effect: a Wilderness Overnight Backpacking permit serves as your timed entry reservation, though you still need a valid park entrance fee or pass, and you have to pick up the physical permit first.
The route
The park publishes the four camps from the Longs Peak Trailhead at 9,405 feet: Goblins Forest, 6 sites, 1.2 miles in at 10,120 feet with 720 feet of gain; Moore Park, 2 sites, 1.7 miles at 9,760 feet; Battle Mountain Group, 1 site, 2.8 miles at 11,000 feet with 1,600 feet of gain; and the Boulderfield, 9 sites, 6 miles at 12,760 feet with 3,360 feet of gain. Every one has a privy. The park's twenty-year average snow-free dates run from May 28 at Moore Park to June 19 at the Boulderfield.
The park's warning about the summit route is worth quoting in full: the Keyhole Route is not a hike, it is a climb that crosses enormous sheer vertical rock faces, often with falling rocks, requiring scrambling, where an unroped fall would likely be fatal.
Why it matters
Camping on this trail is how most people give themselves a real chance at the summit: sleep at the Boulderfield and you start the Keyhole Route at first light instead of 2 am from the parking lot. It is also the one place in Rocky Mountain National Park where the bear canister rule reaches above treeline. The park names the Boulder Field of Longs Peak specifically, because of recurring wildlife incidents.
