Tourons Gone Wild! National Park Chaos, RV Scam Alert & Who Owns Roadtrek Now?

RV Podcast: Monday News Edition

Script for recording, week of July 27, 2026

OPEN

Good morning and welcome to the Monday News Edition of the RV Podcast. I'm Mike Wendland.

Before we get into it, if you've ever pulled away from a campsite and realized halfway down the road that you left the sewer hose hooked up or the stabilizers down, we built something for you. It's called CampBuddy, a setup and break camp checklist app that walks you through it step by step every time, so you don't miss a thing. Check it out at rvlifestyle.com/campbuddy. And if you want stories like these delivered to your inbox before they hit your podcast feed, the newsletter signup is at rvlifestyle.com/newsletter. It's free too.

Now here’s this week’s top RV News Stories 

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STORY 1: Tourons Gone Wild: 2026 Edition

Summer 2026 has turned into a highlight reel of bad decisions in America's national parks. I want to walk you through five of them, because the pattern here matters more than any single story.

Start with Yellowstone. Sometime around July 18, video surfaced of two women walking directly across the fragile microbial crust at Grand Prismatic Spring, off the boardwalk, off the trail, taking selfies a few dozen feet from water that can hit 188 degrees. A Montana woman named Tanya Saueressig filmed it and said she stood there with her mouth open, not believing what she was seeing. As of this recording, nobody has confirmed the two women have been identified or charged. Walking on those mats is a federal misdemeanor, thermal trespassing, punishable by fines up to 3,000 dollars, jail time, and a multi-year ban. And it's not rare. A former deputy chief of the Park Service's law enforcement division calls this crowd "the point one percent," meaning point one percent of visitors, but they generate most of the headlines and most of the damage. Those colorful microbial mats don't grow back like grass. A single footprint can scar them for years.

Then there's the bison. On July 10, a 65-year-old grandfather named Carl Isom-McDaniel was walking with his 13-year-old grandson at Bridge Bay Campground, about a hundred yards from a bull bison that had been dust-bathing. The bison got up, charged, and tossed him eight feet in the air. He broke his femur in four places. The photographer who caught it on video, Mike MacLeod, said the man and his grandson were doing everything right, keeping their distance, and the bison came after them anyway. Park officials later said the animal wouldn't face any management action, since nothing the man did provoked it. Less than a week after that story went viral, another video started circulating of tourists walking right up to a bison for a selfie, ignoring the same 25-yard rule that didn't even save the grandfather who was following it. Yellowstone's bison have injured more people than any other animal in the park. They can run three times faster than you.

Now to the bears, and this one's on us as much as the tourons. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has had to euthanize six black bears near Red Lodge so far this year after they got hooked on human food, garbage, pet food, and officials suspect some intentional feeding too, which is illegal in Montana. Once a bear starts associating people with an easy meal, relocating it usually doesn't work. It'll travel long distances to find its way back. A regional FWP official told local reporters the bears had started following and chasing people. That's how you end up putting an animal down that didn't have to die. There's also a grizzly still being trapped in the same area, and a wildlife management zone outside Red Lodge remains closed while that plays out.

Crowding makes all of this worse. Back in February, Yosemite ended its timed entry reservation system, along with Arches and Glacier. By March, visitation was up 45 percent over the year before. By Memorial Day weekend, parking lots were filling by mid-morning, entrance waits stretched past 90 minutes, and rangers described it as feeling like a day at Disneyland. More people crammed into the same trails and viewpoints means more rushed decisions and more close calls with wildlife.

And not every story this year is about a crowd or a stunt. In May, 33-year-old Anthony Pollio from Florida was hiking alone on Glacier's steep, deadfall-covered Mount Brown Lookout Trail. He was descending after dark, around 9:30 at night, when he surprised a grizzly at close range. It was the park's first fatal bear attack in almost 30 years. Investigators found an empty can of bear spray at the scene. The report concluded that darkness and downed trees likely kept him and the bear from seeing each other until it was too late. Hiking alone, hiking after dark, and not having your bear spray in hand rather than in your pack, that's three separate risks stacked on top of each other.

I'll add one more thing that's been in the news, showing these kind of issues are not restricted to the U.S. Mountain rescue teams in Wales have reported a spike in amateur climbers getting into trouble on exposed routes after those climbs went viral on TikTok. One rescue group there has been called out 97 times this year. It's the same problem showing up on a different continent. A dramatic photo gets the likes. It doesn't show the training or the judgment that made the shot survivable for whoever posted it first.

The lesson across every one of these stories is the same. The parks post the rules. The rangers repeat them at every gate. The animals and the terrain do not care how good the picture would look.

STORY 2: Skeptical Look at RV Market Momentum

An industry publicastion ran a piece recently with the headline "RV Market Momentum Builds Toward 2026." It's based on RVdealer surveys and it paints a picture of balanced inventories and improving dealer sentiment. I want to push back on that a little, because I just spent two days in and around Elkhart, and what I saw on the ground told a different story.

Excessive inventory is still showing up at the factory level. Some manufacturers are only running three days a week. I shift. Others are down to four days, still one shift. The traditional summer shutdowns that plants normally take have been extended by some of these builders, not because they're being cautious, but because they've still got too much product sitting on dealer lots that needs to move first, before 2027 models start showing up next month.

And here's the number that matters. Retail RV registrations, meaning actual purchases by real people, are down nearly 19 percent year over year, according to industry tracking data. Wholesale shipments, meaning what manufacturers actually shipped to dealers, have been down double digits pretty much every month this year.

So when you hear "cautious optimism" and "balanced inventory," understand what's actually driving that. It's hard to overcome a 19 percent drop in sales this year. Slowing production and clearing out the old inventory sitting on dealer lots helps the bottom line, for the manufacturer and for the dealer. That's Job One right now, for both sides, no matter how many times they tell you they're "customer focused" and "customer centric" in a press release.

None of this means don't buy. It might actually mean the opposite, leaner inventory and motivated sellers can be good for buyers willing to negotiate. But go in with your eyes open about why the deals are there.

STORY 3: The Fake Dealership Scam You Need to Know About

This one's a warning, and it happens more than you'd think.

The Better Business Bureau put out an alert last week about a company called Accelerated Motors LLC. It advertised RVs for sale on Facebook, listed a Baton Rouge address as its headquarters, and used what BBB says were AI-altered photos to make a vacant parking lot look like a real dealership.

Carmen Million, the BBB's president, said consumers from outside Louisiana started contacting them after seeing the ads. The company isn't licensed by the Louisiana State Motor Vehicle Commission, which is required to sell RVs in that state. The BBB has referred the case to the Federal Trade Commission, the Louisiana Attorney General's office, and the FBI.

This is why buying blind, or buying purely online without ever verifying who you're dealing with, is a bad idea. Before you send a dime for any RV you find online: Google the seller's actual address and see what's really there. Check the vehicle's value against Kelley Blue Book. Verify the dealer's license with your state's motor vehicle commission. And never, ever wire money to someone you haven't met in person or verified independently. If the deal looks too good, it usually is.

And you need to be even more cautious when buying used. How do you know that stranger you talked to really has the RV. Ask for a live FaceTime or video call that shows the unit outside and in. And as with dealers, try not to send any serious money until you get there in person to see for yourself in real life.

STORY 4: Roadtrek Sold Again, But Who Is Conestogo Partners?

We broke this story ourselves earlier this week, and it's since been picked up across the industry, so let's dig into it properly here.

Roadtrek, the Cambridge, Ontario company that basically invented the modern Class B motorhome, has a new owner. It's moving from France's Groupe Rapido to a firm called Conestogo Partners. The letter Roadtrek sent to its dealers describes the buyer as, quote, a U.S.-based permanent capital ownership group focused on the outdoor recreation industry, end quote. Roadtrek says it'll keep building in Cambridge under its current leadership, no operational changes, and the Wave Skylight, Wave SL, and Wave for 2 floorplans continue into the 2027 model year. The Westfalia licensing arrangement is being phased out over time, with existing Westfalia owners still covered under warranty.

Here's the question I know a lot of you are asking, because I asked it too: who exactly is Conestogo Partners?

I went looking. I checked SEC records, state investment adviser registrations, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, PitchBook, business press, everywhere a firm like this would normally leave some kind of trail. I came up empty. No website I could find. No SEC investment adviser registration under that name. No prior acquisitions or portfolio companies showing up anywhere in the industry or financial press. No executives named publicly anywhere outside of Roadtrek's own dealer letter.

That doesn't necessarily mean anything sinister. Permanent capital vehicles get set up around a single acquisition all the time, often as a newly formed holding entity backed by a family office or a small group of private investors who don't run a public-facing firm. The "permanent capital" language itself is a real term in that world, it means the buyer isn't a typical private equity shop planning to flip the company in five to seven years, they intend to hold it indefinitely. If that's true here, it could genuinely be good news for a brand that has been passed around more than any RV company I can think of, from a Chigaho privety equity group to Erwin Hymer Group, almost to THOR's until financial irregularities scared them off and sent the company into bankrupcy, then to Groupe Rapido and now this.

But I'm not going to tell you Conestogo Partners has a track record in outdoor recreation, because as of this recording, I can't verify one. Nobody in the trade press has independently confirmed who's behind the money. Roadtrek's own statement is the only public description of this buyer that exists right now. If you're a Roadtrek owner or a dealer, that's worth knowing. We'll keep digging on who's actually behind this, and I'll update you the moment there's something solid to report.

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Quick break here. I know it's the middle of summer, but if you're even thinking about being a Florida snowbird this winter, you need to be planning now, not in October.

Florida is one of the most popular RV destinations in the country, and reservations at the good parks book up to a year in advance. We've written full travel guides for the Gulf Coast, the Atlantic Coast, and the Keys, covering routes, campgrounds, and the stuff that actually matters when you're planning a winter down there. Right now there's a real deal on the bundle, all three guides together at a big savings, or you can grab them individually if you only need one region. Head to rvlifestyle.com/allflorida. Don't wait on this one. The good spots go first.

Back to the news.

STORY 5: Minnesota's Own Wildfire Crisis

We talk a lot about Canadian wildfire smoke drifting into the U.S. This year, Minnesota is dealing with its own fires, and they're serious.

A lightning storm in early July sparked more than a dozen fires across the Superior National Forest. They've since burned more than 72,000 acres. The Forest Service took the rare step of closing the entire Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, only the third full closure in its history. Nearly 800 firefighters are working the lines. The closure order officially runs through October 1, though the Forest Service is reopening limited day-use areas in sections where fire activity has died down, and they're evaluating conditions daily. Roughly 1,900 wilderness campsites are affected, and this is a wilderness area that draws more than 150,000 visitors a year.

That's not an isolated story. As of the most recent National Interagency Fire Center report, dated July 24, the U.S. has 78 large fires currently being fought, out of nearly 42,000 fires so far this year, burning just over 4 million acres nationally. That's well above the 10-year average. NIFC has the national preparedness level set at PL5, the highest level there is, meaning firefighting resources across the country are stretched thin and military crews are being brought in to help. Utah and Colorado have had the worst of it outside Minnesota, with well over 400,000 combined acres burned between the two states.

Now for Canada, and the numbers here take some sorting out because sources disagree depending on when they were measured. The Canadian government's official mid-July update put the season at 3,137 fires and about 3.5 million acres burned, which is actually below last year's pace at the same point, when more than 11 million acres had already burned. But independent tracking measured a bit later in July showed the total climbing fast, into the range of 5.7 to 6.9 million acres burned, with more than 900 active fires. Either way you slice it, Canada has already burned more total acreage this year than the entire U.S. has, even with our own fire season running at the highest national preparedness level there is.

The prognosis for Canada isn't great. Government forecasters are calling for above-average temperatures across most of the country through August, with the highest fire danger concentrated in the Northwest Territories, northern Manitoba, and the areas around Hudson Bay, plus elevated risk in northern Ontario and Quebec. 

If you had a Boundary Waters trip planned, check the Superior National Forest alerts page directly before you go, because the picture is changing week to week. And if you're RVing anywhere near northern Minnesota or the Canadian border this summer, keep an eye on air quality.   As we’ve seen, smoke from fires this size travels a long way.

STORY 6: Real Money Going Into Fixing the Parks

I want to end on something more hopeful, because it connects directly back to that crowding problem we talked about earlier.

The National Park Foundation announced last week it's awarding more than 10 million dollars across 18 grants to support innovation projects at 21 national parks. This is the first round of a program the Foundation says will eventually distribute more than 20 million dollars over two years.

Some of this money is going directly at the crowding and congestion problem. Acadia, for example, is using its grant to deploy sensors and real-time traffic data so visitors and park managers can actually see congestion and wait times before they're stuck in them. Other parks are using funding for better asset management and emergency response technology.

It's a relatively small amount of money against the scale of the visitation problem we've been talking about all episode, but it's a real, specific attempt to use technology to solve a real, specific problem. I'll take that over another press release about "customer centric" values any day.

CLOSE

That’s it for this week.

One more reminder before you go. If you're planning a Florida snowbird trip this winter, don't sit on it. Reservations at the best parks fill up to a year out, and our Gulf Coast, Atlantic Coast, and Keys guides are bundled right now at a big discount at rvlifestyle.com/allflorida. Get moving on that.

That's the Monday News Edition. We do two RVPodcast episodes a week here. This one, with the latest news, every Monday. And on Wednesdays, Jennifer joins me for Stories from the Road, where we get into the personal side of this RV life.

Full sources for every story in this episode are listed at RVPodcast.com so you can check our work yourselves.

If this show is useful to you, the best thing you can do for us is leave a review wherever you're listening. It genuinely helps other RVers find the show.

I'm Mike Wendland. Thanks for listening. Happy Trails!

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 SOURCES 

Story 1: Tourons

https://www.montanarightnow.com/bozeman/extremely-selfish-and-disrespectful-says-woman-who-recorded-yellowstone-visitors-walking-across-geothermal-pool/article_abd8c796-eb87-494b-9dee-dc4313e9b67c.html

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2026/07/20/tourists-again-illegally-walk-on-dangerous-grand-prismatic-spring-in-yellowstone/

https://www.newsweek.com/yellowstone-warning-tourists-risk-death-at-lethal-spring-12223855

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/us/bison-attack-yellowstone

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2026/07/18/colorado-family-targeted-by-same-angry-yellowstone-bison-that-tossed-grandpa/

https://www.foxnews.com/travel/yellowstone-officials-decide-fate-bison-launched-grandfather-8-feet-air

https://www.montanarightnow.com/news/fwp-warns-people-not-to-feed-bears-after-six-food-conditioned-bears-euthanized-near-red/article_3b7d836d-0ea0-5bb2-bef2-43cdc5beae21.html

https://www.deseret.com/lifestyle/2026/05/28/yosemite-national-park-ends-reservation-system-crowded-trails-no-parking/

https://www.thetravel.com/yosemite-national-parks-no-timed-entries-rule-backfires-visitors-endure-hour-long-lines/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/report-man-killed-glacier-national-005912998.html

https://flatheadbeacon.com/2026/05/09/glacier-national-parks-first-deadly-bear-attack-since-1998-underscores-anomaly-of-fatal-encounters/

https://www.aol.com/rescuers-save-amateur-climbers-amid-140241577.html

Story 2: RV Market Skepticism https://rv-pro.com/features/rv-market-momentum-builds-toward-2026/

https://moderncampground.com/usa/rv-shipments-fall-18-7-in-may-as-towable-rv-declines-outpace-motorhome-gains

https://rvbusiness.com/dm-vans-sells-out-entire-2026-model-year-ahead-of-schedule/

Story 3: Fake Dealership Scam https://www.ksla.com/2026/07/22/bbb-warns-ai-powered-rv-dealer-scam-targeting-facebook-users/

https://rvbusiness.com/bbb-warns-of-ai-powered-rv-dealer-scam-targeting-facebook/

Story 4: Roadtrek Sold to Conestogo Partners

https://rvbusiness.com/roadtrek-inc-confirms-acquisition-by-conestogo-partners/

https://rvlifestyle.com/roadtrek-sold-again/

https://www.rvpodcast.com/roadtrek-sold/

Story 5: Minnesota Wildfires

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/northern-minnesota-wildfire-update-july-22-2026-boundary-waters/

https://www.fox9.com/news/minnesota-wildfires-nearly-72k-acres-burned-bwca-closed-until-least-friday

https://www.fs.usda.gov/r09/superior/alerts/bwcaw-multiple-wildfire-area-closures

https://www.valleynewslive.com/2026/07/17/ely-businesses-volunteers-assist-with-evacuations-wildfires-force-boundary-waters-closure-third-time-history/

https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2026/07/the-government-of-canada-provides-an-update-regarding-the-2026-wildfire-season--july-update.html

https://www.medicaldaily.com/canada-wildfire-2026-season-statistics-evacuations-smoke-update-476176

Story 6: National Park Foundation Grants

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/national-park-foundation-awards-more-than-10-million-to-spark-innovation-across-the-national-park-system-302832368.html

https://rv-pro.com/news/national-park-foundation-awards-10m-to-spark-innovation-at-21-parks/

https://gearjunkie.com/parks-and-public-lands/big-tech-national-parks