Katie Williston usually this time of the year pulls down her sleeping bags and her outdoor gear in order to make sure that everything survived the winter – falling not to temperatures but to varmints – as she gears up for another beautiful Northern California spring. 

But she doesn’t know how far her conversion van is going to get her this year, or what the vibe will be like amongst the people that she meets when she does get up there – sometimes for a week at a stretch. 

Because without water, wildland camping is pretty much out of the realm of possibility. The plethora of options for long-distance treks that would provide mountaineers with streams and springs to refill from are drying up. 

“It’s looking like if you want to go stand out in the middle of a tinder box and wait for it to go up like a piece of toilet paper, when that’s the camping you’re going to be doing this year in Northern California,” Williston said. “I remember seeing the smoke from the Rim Fire, and that could just be the beginning because nowhere up there got saturated enough to make a difference.”

Cities like Escalon and Oakdale depend on water during the summer to provide a nice influx of out-of-town visitors coming in to spend money before hitting Woodward Reservoir – the agricultural diversion reservoir that will operate at full capacity until further notice as water wars rage on in the background. 

And further up the mountain, places like Angels Camp are going to be hit hard by a dwindling New Melones Reservoir. The lone remaining business on the reservoir – the New Melones Marina at the Glory Hole Recreation Area – could find business drying up if the lake drops below a critical level beneath where water would still be able to flow back out onto the Stanislaus River. 

A major houseboat concessionaire pulled their permit at the end of last season after reading the writing on the wall. Williston and her friend Trystan Gunkert say they keep tabs on that’s happening on the federal level in terms of water because it will play a big role in how Californians choose to spend their time when that scorching summer heat rolls across the northern portion of the state within the next three months. 

“I have a lot of friends that were big into the Sierra backpacking and they would plan for months to take trips and hike and pack, but now they’re looking towards the coast,” Gunkert said. “The ocean breeds moisture and it’s a different environment. They’re looking at places up north in Mendocino to hike. While we aren’t really going to feel this hard until next year, this is a chance to try something different because things as we’ve enjoyed them are going to change. 

“That toboggan hill isn’t always going to be there like it was when we were kids. So we’ve got to find other places to go explore.”