The Pismo Monarch Grove Visit You Shouldn't Save for January

When is the right weekend to walk the family, or the in-laws visiting for the holidays, over to the eucalyptus grove next to North Beach Campground? For most of the grove's history the answer was easy. Any weekend from December through January worked. The visitor guide still calls December the peak and says January "often maintains strong numbers."

Last season's count didn't follow that pattern. The Pismo Beach monarch grove recorded 471 butterflies during the peak survey window in late November and early December 2025. By the late-season count, which closed January 11, 2026, it recorded 95. One season doesn't make a rule, and nobody has published an explanation yet. But for a resident who can pick any weekend, the safest plan for 2026 is to go in late November or early December and treat January as a bonus.

How far the January number fell

The Xerces Society's Western Monarch Count surveys overwintering sites twice a winter. The mid-season count, formerly called the Thanksgiving count, runs during the usual peak from late November through early December. The late-season count runs a few weeks later. Some drop between the two counts is normal. Xerces attributes it to seasonal mortality and possibly early dispersal from the sites.

What matters is how big the drop is. Here is how Pismo's grove at Pismo State Beach, listed in the dataset as Pismo Beach, North Beach Campground, has held its numbers from one count to the next over the last five winters.

The drop between counts has grown every winter in that run. In the early 2020s, Pismo kept most of its butterflies into January. Over the last two winters it kept a minority. Statewide, the 2025–26 decline from mid-season to late-season was 47%, and Xerces puts the range over the past ten years at 35% to 58%. Pismo's 80% from last winter falls well outside that statewide range.

The table also covers a second change, the collapse in overall size. The grove went from 16,044 at the 2023 mid-season count to 556 a year later. KSBY reported in March 2026 that the Central Coast State Parks Association called last season's 471 the second-lowest count in the grove's history. These two shifts play out differently on the ground. A smaller grove still shows clusters at its peak. A smaller grove that also thins fast leaves a much shorter stretch of the winter when there's much to see.

The long view, in five numbers

Pismo's Xerces record goes back to 1997. A handful of entries from that series put last season in context.

• 1997: 100,000 at the first count in the series
• 2018: 3,082, a deep low for the site at the time
• 2020: 199, the lowest mid-season figure on record, with only 36 at the late-season count that followed
• 2022: 24,128, the strongest year of the recent rebound
• 2025: 471

The 2020 low and the strong 2021 and 2022 seasons that followed show how fast this grove's numbers can swing in either direction. That cuts both ways for 2026. A rebound is possible, and so is another thin year. In an interview KSBY referenced in its March 2026 report, Cal Poly professor Francis Villablanca told the station that the cause of the broader decline is still unknown. He said climate change, pesticides and urban expansion may all play a part. Statewide, Xerces reported the 2025 mid-season total as about 12,260 monarchs across 249 sites.

So this isn't a forecast for the coming season. It's a planning call. When nobody can say how big the grove will get, the weeks around the mid-season count are when the grove has the most butterflies it will have all winter.

A season calendar built around the count windows

As of October 5, 2026, no first arrivals for this fall and no start date for 2026–27 docent talks have been announced. What follows is based on the grove's usual timing and last season's survey dates, not on confirmed 2026 dates.

1. Late October. The visitor guide says the first clusters typically form in late October, in the eucalyptus and Monterey cypress. For a sense of scale, the early-season count was 235 in 2025 and 354 in 2024.
2. Early to mid-November. Numbers usually build, and cool mornings show the tight clusters best. CCSPA's school field trips for kindergarten through fourth grade run Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., November through February, so weekday mornings at the grove may be busier then.
3. Late November through early December. This is the mid-season count window and the grove's usual peak. In both of the last two winters, Pismo's highest count came in this window. If you only make one trip, this is the stretch to aim for. Docent talks run at noon on weekends during peak season, depending on docent availability and weather.
4. Late December into early January. Last season the late-season count closed on January 11, 2026, by which point Pismo's tally had dropped to 95. A visit during the holiday week with out-of-town guests is still worth taking. Just keep expectations modest.
5. February. The visitor guide says monarchs start leaving the coast by mid to late February. KSBY's March 2026 report said only about 150 butterflies had been counted at Pismo since the start of 2026. That figure doesn't match Xerces' late-season 95, and neither source explains the difference in survey windows, so the Xerces dataset is the one to rely on here.

The grove's official season also differs depending on the source. California State Parks lists November to February. The city's visitor site lists October through February. Both ranges include the late-November peak.

Getting there without fighting for a space

The grove is just off Highway 1 at the southern edge of Pismo Beach, and parking and entry are free. Parking is very limited, and visitors may not park inside North Beach Campground. The visitor site recommends walking or biking in when possible. On a peak-window weekend at noon, when docent talks draw the biggest crowd, living within walking distance makes the trip much easier.

Once you're there:

• Monarch Mercantile Trailer. CCSPA runs the trailer, and it's open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily during the October-to-February season. Purchases support the association's education and conservation work.
• Telescopes. These are usually set up so visitors can see the clusters high in the trees. With last winter's small numbers, a telescope could make a big difference to what you see.
• QR-code signs. Signs around the grove link to free educational videos from the Oceano Dunes District of California State Parks. You can watch them on-site or at home, which helps if you arrive between docent talks.

One more thing to keep an eye on is CCSPA's events page. Its 2026 calendar lists a "Monarch Screening," but no details have been posted yet, and the linked image still says "More info coming soon!" The Central Coast State Parks Association site is where the date will likely appear. Last season, Xerces announced its mid-season results in a January 29, 2026 webinar, and the recording is on the Western Monarch Count data page, for anyone who wants to compare their own November visit with the official tally.

At Jordan Jackson, we watch the timing behind Central Coast life as closely as we watch the timing of a market, and the monarch window at North Beach Campground is part of what makes this end of Pismo Beach distinctive. If you're weighing a move closer to the grove, or curious how seasonal draws like this one figure into home values near the state beach, book a consultation and we'll go through it with you.