Campground in the 21st century

PlayDoh · #1 08-13-2018, 10:31 PM

I was doing some math my last time out and it’s clear Campgrounds are now all about the profits. Let’s use Kinbrook Island as an example. It’s completely packed every weekend. 170 sites. Easily 80% full mid week, often 95% or more.

So 170 sites at $33 = $5,610 a night. $11,220 a weekend. At 80% it’s $4,488 a night. $22,440 during the week and $33,660 a full week. $134,640 a month. That’s $400,000 June, July, August. Probably and even half a million a season.

Am I the only one that finds that ridiculous for a “Provincial Park”? Our parents and grandparents paid to have these campgrounds built, and how much can it possibly cost to maintain a campground? Electricity, water are the biggest parts, after staff. So unless the staff are getting 6 figures, someone’s making a pretty penny ‘managing’ a campground.

I have no idea what cut the province takes, yet I’m sure their making a killing off the ‘reserve Alberta parks’ system. $12 a site per trip. Most trips are likely weekends. So say $24 a week per site. That’s $50,000 for reservation fees just for Kinbrook from June 1 til Sep 1.

My other concern is with campsite reservations now the new norm, there is such a variation in how this is done.

The days of going camping without planning and paying 3 months ahead of time, is almost a thing of the past. Some campgrounds have some non-reservable sites, yet there usually the less desirable ones, and often only a handful.

It’s my observation that campgrounds are now being almost exclusively being used by locals. I was planning on going to Rolling Hills reservoir, just south of Lake Newell and Brooks.

They have like 140 sites, half seasonal half daily. Yet they don’t take reservations for any of the daily sites. So I called today and just trying to make sure we can get a site on a Tuesday.

She tells me people ‘line up’ first thing in the morning to get the decent looking sites, and none of them are available now. She said people plan their lives around those sites.
What chance does anyone not from Brooks stand at getting a site?

There are essentially the same amount of campgrounds as there was 30-40 years ago, yet our population has grown and the size of the campsites has had to increase, and in so decreasing the number of available sites.
Camping was always free, with free firewood, then say 30 years ago it was like $5.

Now it being $30+ a night, and half arm full of wood for $10, plus a $12 reservation fee + tax. It’s now almost an exclusive resort. You almost never see teenagers camping, which I’ll agree isn’t a all together bad thing, yet that’s easy to say when your youth is gone by.

I get out several times a year, and camping has always been big in my entire family. Yet with the price of gas on top of everything it can cost me around $1000 a trip. Every year or 2 the site fees creep up, and gas will be what? $2 a liter in a year or 2?

I really wanted to go to Lesser Slave this year, but after doing the math it would have cost over $500 in gas for the truck, there and back. So our camping spots are getting closer and closer and the distant places we would occasionally visit are out of the question now.

I think we all need to take a look at this system, now a highly profitable industry. The provincial parks belong to us. And we’re being charged $30 a night to be able to use them, and there availability is scarce and being mismanaged in various ways, with little rhyme or reason.

I’m not pretending to have all the answers, yet I feel like we’re all being fleeced, and profiting of our camping recreation on a provincial park is wrong. We are talking about a gravel pad with maybe an electric hookup. How that costs a 1/3rd of a privately built and operated hotel room is beyond me.

stefk · #2 08-13-2018, 11:13 PM

Sold the holiday trailer last year for the very reasons you pointed out...Plus, it seemed not matter how early we tried leaving to beat the rush, we could never get a plum spot.

One of the things I've noticed in my neck of the woods, is the increase of groups of people (2-4 families) going in on smaller bush acreages and making their own campgrounds. Can't say I don't blame people for doing this..seeing as how congested backcountry Rv'ing areas are these days, coupled with increased closures and may soon be a thing of the past

jcrayford · #3 08-14-2018, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stefk

Sold the holiday trailer last year for the very reasons you pointed out...Plus, it seemed not matter how early we tried leaving to beat the rush, we could never get a plum spot.

One of the things I've noticed in my neck of the woods, is the increase of groups of people (2-4 families) going in on smaller bush acreages and making their own campgrounds. Can't say I don't blame people for doing this..seeing as how congested backcountry Rv'ing areas are these days, coupled with increased closures and will soon be a thing of the past

^Fixed it for you.

Nothing like closing down Crown land (Crown is supposed to entitle ALL of us to enjoy it) to focus on jamming everyone into a reservation system that sucks, and campgrounds that will charge whatever they want in a few years.

I made the mistake of thinking that we could fly by the seat of our pants over the past long weekend and just roll into some place to set up camp - WRONG! Now my wife will become vacation planner as I no longer have the desire to fight the reservation system anymore.

J.

ReconWilly · #4 08-14-2018, 07:02 AM

Don't worry if (they) have their way soon enough no one will even be allowed to leave their city prisons in their PREPROGRAMMED self driving cars...

I agree the whole system is rotten.

lyallpeder · #5 08-14-2018, 07:26 AM

I usually don’t have trouble booking sites but now days I think you do have to plan your holiday 3 months ahead. And I agree prices are too high. $33 for no power, water tap down the road a shower house that makes jail look clean and nothing to do that costs the government anything. We have 23 days worth of camping booked this summer and all of it was planned in January when federal parks opened their booking system.

sewerrat · #6 08-14-2018, 08:12 AM

I do find the prices are very inconsistent, not sure if the park operators can set their own prices but at Fish lake near Nordegg they want $32.00 a night with no services, and not near anything. Bow valley PP they charge $26.00 with no services and not far from Canmore.

Masterchief · #7 08-14-2018, 09:24 AM

We sold our trailer 5 years ago because it was getting harder and harder to get a spot. We used to leave early on Friday to find a nice spot in the bush, then it had to be Thursday or Wednesday. Campgrounds were a whole other beast with the new reserve system... way to difficult to plan every weekend for the summer in January. What used to be appealing about camping is that you could throw a few things in the trailer and hit the road, find a campground on the way and maybe not get the first choice of spots, but you would at least have somewhere decent to stay. Those carefree days are long gone and I don't intend to get back into the race

bat119 · #8 08-14-2018, 09:26 AM

In the 70's camping was the only vacation most family's could afford, the campgrounds were only 75% full of tents and a few trailers not like the parking lots of today. Amenities were primitive, outhouses and the only shower was the lake I remember shaving with a mirror hanging on a tree, firewood was free and plentiful...….I miss those days.
The only crime I remember was a fellow that had a rock thrown through his windshield for starting up a generator in his new fangled Winnebago at 6 AM.

bobtodrick · #9 08-14-2018, 09:39 AM

Just got back from a weeks camping.
A provincial campground. $19/night, but only twelve sites. But for the entire 7 nights we were there we were the only ones there...just the way I like it.
As with the proverbial great fishing spot that becomes over-run when someone tells one friend...I'm not saying where it is.
But they are out there.

Okotok · #10 08-14-2018, 10:12 AM

Just got back from two weeks of camping. Sites ranged from $52, $46, $32 for full hook-ups and $32 for power only and $20 for unserviced other than a pump and outhouses. Nice thing was Lac Cardinal and campsites North of Peace River all have free firewood, including birch. We were the only ones at the La Crete Ferry campground during the week. Beautiful and well maintained municipal site. 75 powered sites. First come first serve at all. We even managed to get one of the Last sites on a Saturday afternoon at Big Fish in Slave Lake.

JReed · #11 08-14-2018, 10:15 AM

They keep raising the campground fees and people keep paying it. Also, society has made it easy for people to be comfortable out camping (30ft trailers, motorhomes). Heard on the radio in winter that RV sales are up 15%, but yet we have the highest debt per capita in comparison to other countries. How does that work?

Unfortunately it's getting harder to escape the city, like the last post before mine, find hidden gems and don't tell anybody. People gotta post online about awesome places they've been, and soon they are overrun with everyone else.

I was just in Montana for 10 days. The most I paid for camping was $10/night, the rest of the nights were $6, and I never had to pay for firewood once. Just the way I like it.

Look at your favourite pass time and how the prices have skyrocketed. Better enjoy it now, everything's becoming a rich man's game in this country. Soon hunting/fishing access will all be private and you'll have to pay for that too, it's already happening. Just getting worse with time

traderal · #12 08-14-2018, 10:19 AM

I've been camping for about 25 years, used to be nice to just show up around noon at any campground and get a good spot. Since then thousands of trailers and motorhomes have been sold and no new campgrounds have been built. Just think if all that money put into LRT routes in the cities had been put into campgrounds. Don't like the reservation system. Provincial campgrounds should never have been handed over to be run by the private sector, let them build their own.

bat119 · #13 08-14-2018, 10:43 AM

Most of the Saskatchewan private campgrounds close to lakes have been subdivided into lots due to high real-estate values campsites that were $10 a night sold for $90,000 can't really blame the owners. The sale of campgrounds has put more pressure on the provincial campgrounds and regional parks at a time when everybody and their dog is buying a camper.
I recently went to Regina for medical treatments one month of full hookup was $1124 no fires and keep off the grass.

nast70 · #14 08-14-2018, 11:14 AM

I haven't paid for a camping spot in a couple years during the summer. From May long to August long our group boondocks off grid with the trailers. We used to do several trips a year to campgrounds from Cold Lake to Slave Lake. I would rather put the extra $30 a night into gas and go a bit further out. Since we have started this, we have found several cherry spots away from the crowds where we can do whatever we want, fish out the front door, run the gennys till 1am, cut our own wood and ride the quads out from our trailer.
The only place I will pay for camping now is out of swan hills in late September, only because the weekend warriors are all gone and we usually get the whole place to ourselves anyway.

lead chucker · #15 08-14-2018, 08:31 PM

It used to be great camping in the castle until this POS park was brought in, but even with the random camping ban there has been no new camping areas put in.they want it all shut down!.

villn · #16 08-14-2018, 09:56 PM

The population of Alberta has doubled since 1980, the number of campground sites hasn't. There is also a tourism boom going on, with Banff seeing insane record levels of visitors. The situation with hotels is even worse, rooms that go for $150 at Christmas break are $400 a night on summer weekends, and almost all hotels are sold out. So people who didn't used to camp are now forced to go camping because they can't afford anything else.

But, here's to hoping two years of forest fire smoke will drive some of the out-of-country visitors away for next year...

Bub · #17 08-15-2018, 01:56 AM

I thought you were all for full blown capitalism and small government and whatever. Well, welcome to the real world.

A few years back, we went to Alaska. I cannot recall at the moment which one, but we were planning to stay overnight at one of the more famous glaciers. They wanted thirty some USD per person per night!!! And that's tent camping I am talking about. If my memory is right, we paid sixteen USD per person to get on the property and walk to/on the glacier. Each one of us also had to sign a waiver/release form if something had ever happened to us while being on the property. What a waste of money that was. The whole thing looked like a construction site with bulldozers and whatnot moving **** all over the place.

Obviously we did not stay there. We did find plenty of very nice spots where we did not have to pay a penny for our stay. Then we got to stay at State (or whatever they are called) Parks and most were a very pleasant experience and $16-30 per sight per night. We did not have to pay for access even if we were not camping at the park. I believe we had to pay for parking at one or two places though. We also met some great people there. One of the private camping grounds was the highlight of our trip. Like I said, some nice people we met there.

As for camping in general, I try to avoid Provincial Parks because

it ain't camping to begin with.

brslk · #18 08-15-2018, 02:49 AM

We gave up camping and sold the trailer when I realized we could go to Jasper, rent the Outlook cabin with some friends and "camp" in luxury for less than the cost of actually camping. Plus there's not as much of a hassle trying to reserve a spot decades in advance only to be stuck beside the outhouse 2ft from the next guy stuck beside the outhouse.
Seriously, it's cheaper to rent a cabin than it is to camp in an RV and you don't take a hit on depreciation.

The big lure of camping to me was always just being able to travel and stop somewhere for a night or two and carry on. Now you need to reserve everything so far in advance and be ready to hit enter as soon as the reservation system opens up for the season.

ram crazy · #19 08-15-2018, 06:22 AM

That's what kills me you have the ones that cry about not being allowed on lease land, but yet these same ones are totally ok with crown land being shut down to some user groups. Talk about hypocrisy.

roughneckin · #20 08-15-2018, 06:54 AM

Maybe the difference now is the RV popularity that has grown significantly and is the major change. Like folks say back in the 70s 80s 90s I never it was much easier to find a spot but you had to “kinda rough it” and a lot of folks don’t like that so they just didn’t go. Now with RVs you can enjoy the outdoors in pretty much home comfort as if anything goes wrong, rain, snow, bugs, you just roll on into your house on wheels and watch the tube. Don’t get into the well I’m old and need some comfort bologna either cause a lot of folks still rough it at 60 plus and backs hurt and all that. Pioneers and such.
We are in an out of touch generation but we’ve done it to ourselves and deserve what we got I guess.

Don_Parsons · #21 08-15-2018, 07:07 AM

I've been living on the road some where no where in our Americas, and I never paid a dime to camp any where. Lots of places to camp for free if you choose to find them.

All 4 Oceans with everything in-between, don't get me wrong, some of the areas might not be golden to some people, but I've never found a spot that I wouldn't return to.

The only one camping in the areas we visit are nill for humans. It's the best outings we've enjoyed for many years.

ren008 · #22 08-15-2018, 07:48 AM

I bring up all these points every time the wife brings up buying a camper and we have only ever entertained something smaller, a newer tent trailer/hybrid maybe, not some of these homes on wheels monstrosities. Owning and pulling a trailer is simply not economical in the least and makes little sense to me.

Cost of camper
Camper maintenance
Camper Registration
Site Fee
Reservation Fee
Truck/New SUV to pull the damn thing
Extra Gas & wear/tear pulling the damn thing
Registration for a truck I don't really need otherwise

Lots of money for a depreciating asset and buys a lot of cabin rentals when you think about it.

We still tent/car camp and go on road-trips and find it is still a cheap and fun way to go though. I like the road-trip aspect of it all best anyways, very little appeal to me in sitting in one place for more than a few days, and we always seem to find overflow space in the campgrounds if we want some amenities or a free spot for a tent somewhere!!

creeky · #23 08-15-2018, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ren008

I bring up all these points every time the wife brings up buying a camper and we have only ever entertained something smaller, a newer tent trailer/hybrid maybe, not some of these homes on wheels monstrosities. Owning and pulling a trailer is simply not economical in the least and makes little sense to me.

Cost of camper
Camper maintenance
Camper Registration
Site Fee
Reservation Fee
Truck/New SUV to pull the damn thing
Extra Gas & wear/tear pulling the damn thing
Registration for a truck I don't really need otherwise

Lots of money for a depreciating asset and buys a lot of cabin rentals when you think about it.

We still tent/car camp and go on road-trips and find it is still a cheap and fun way to go though. I like the road-trip aspect of it all best anyways, very little appeal to me in sitting in one place for more than a few days, and we always seem to find overflow space in the campgrounds if we want some amenities or a free spot for a tent somewhere!!

And let's not forget monthly storage fees if you don't have space where you live.

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SageValleyOutdoors · #24 08-15-2018, 06:25 PM

We got sick of the high campsite fees and tried dry camping on crown land. After 3 years of drunk idiots driving all over the place, strangers parking their camper 20’ away from us and running generators all night, atvs and dirt bikes driven through our site at all hours and finally (the straw that broke the camels back) someone stealing a bunch of our stuff, we decided to buy a bit of land, park the trailer and have some privacy, quiet and fun of our own...
We started looking for a small place to buy, and while prices are insane in the mountains and BC, we found our perfect little corner of the world south of the border in MT. It’s a 4-5 hour drive depending on the border, but well worth it. Close to lakes, a creek full of trout passss through the place, and the amount of nature and peace is unbelievable.
We’re down there almost every weekend between April and late August (i bring the trailer home in time for archery season), and though i doubt we save money on camping fees and firewood etc, i think we come out ahead as far as the experience goes

Johnnyg313 · #25 08-15-2018, 07:51 PM

Geezuz, I guess it’s time to subdivide my bush quarters.

creighton · #26 08-16-2018, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PlayDoh

I was doing some math my last time out and it’s clear Campgrounds are now all about the profits. Let’s use Kinbrook Island as an example. It’s completely packed every weekend. 170 sites. Easily 80% full mid week, often 95% or more.

So 170 sites at $33 = $5,610 a night. $11,220 a weekend. At 80% it’s $4,488 a night. $22,440 during the week and $33,660 a full week. $134,640 a month. That’s $400,000 June, July, August. Probably and even half a million a season.

Am I the only one that finds that ridiculous for a “Provincial Park”? Our parents and grandparents paid to have these campgrounds built, and how much can it possibly cost to maintain a campground? Electricity, water are the biggest parts, after staff. So unless the staff are getting 6 figures, someone’s making a pretty penny ‘managing’ a campground.

I have no idea what cut the province takes, yet I’m sure their making a killing off the ‘reserve Alberta parks’ system. $12 a site per trip. Most trips are likely weekends. So say $24 a week per site. That’s $50,000 for reservation fees just for Kinbrook from June 1 til Sep 1.

My other concern is with campsite reservations now the new norm, there is such a variation in how this is done.

The days of going camping without planning and paying 3 months ahead of time, is almost a thing of the past. Some campgrounds have some non-reservable sites, yet there usually the less desirable ones, and often only a handful.

It’s my observation that campgrounds are now being almost exclusively being used by locals. I was planning on going to Rolling Hills reservoir, just south of Lake Newell and Brooks.

They have like 140 sites, half seasonal half daily. Yet they don’t take reservations for any of the daily sites. So I called today and just trying to make sure we can get a site on a Tuesday.

She tells me people ‘line up’ first thing in the morning to get the decent looking sites, and none of them are available now. She said people plan their lives around those sites.
What chance does anyone not from Brooks stand at getting a site?

There are essentially the same amount of campgrounds as there was 30-40 years ago, yet our population has grown and the size of the campsites has had to increase, and in so decreasing the number of available sites.
Camping was always free, with free firewood, then say 30 years ago it was like $5.

Now it being $30+ a night, and half arm full of wood for $10, plus a $12 reservation fee + tax. It’s now almost an exclusive resort. You almost never see teenagers camping, which I’ll agree isn’t a all together bad thing, yet that’s easy to say when your youth is gone by.

I get out several times a year, and camping has always been big in my entire family. Yet with the price of gas on top of everything it can cost me around $1000 a trip. Every year or 2 the site fees creep up, and gas will be what? $2 a liter in a year or 2?

I really wanted to go to Lesser Slave this year, but after doing the math it would have cost over $500 in gas for the truck, there and back. So our camping spots are getting closer and closer and the distant places we would occasionally visit are out of the question now.

I think we all need to take a look at this system, now a highly profitable industry. The provincial parks belong to us. And we’re being charged $30 a night to be able to use them, and there availability is scarce and being mismanaged in various ways, with little rhyme or reason.

I’m not pretending to have all the answers, yet I feel like we’re all being fleeced, and profiting of our camping recreation on a provincial park is wrong. We are talking about a gravel pad with maybe an electric hookup. How that costs a 1/3rd of a privately built and operated hotel room is beyond me.

So on top of all of this.......
Its like $8 for a Walmart Burger at the concession. Like really??

1899b · #27 08-16-2018, 03:13 PM

I love camping and we go often. But if you are speaking of hook ups, service fees and reservations, you are idea of camping is miles apart from mine.

Why would you want to go to a packed place that ends up looking like a glorified mobile home park with some trees? That aint camping. Camping is when your shelter folds up in your rig....

bat119 · #28 08-16-2018, 03:56 PM

We had a seasonal owned by a farmer that thought it would be a good side business, he cleared out 60 sites installed septic tanks for trailer dumping and toilets life was good for the first year.
The RM decided it wanted a bigger piece of the pie a$325 levy was placed per campsite and to prevent anyone from using the park year round no trailers could be left on the site over the winter units were moved up onto road was fine dumb but fine.
The owners plan was to pipe in water from an Artesian well on the property to the trailers for grey water use only not for drinking, provincial law prohibits this the water has to be potable. A filtration system was way out of budget he installed water tanks filled by truck at various locations around the site.

Next came the RM sewage and garbage dumping fee's and the boat launch fee even if you had a boat or not $160/yr for both.

First $1750 a year last year was $3250 so we moved on, I can't blame the owner he didn't have any choice but to pass on the fee's and taxes the RM imposed.
The last I heard the RM was forcing him to make some sites available for overnight camping exactly what he was trying to avoid.

does it ALL outdoors · #29 08-16-2018, 04:48 PM

Gave up on campgrounds 20 yrs ago and haven't looked back.

I allways find random spots on crown land wherever I go.

A good friend just camped somewhere around Lake Louise last week, 10 pm the warden comes around and stands there untill your fires out. But screaming kids at 6am are ok, no thanks!

And the new ridiculous booking system insures I'll never go back

ETOWNCANUCK · #30 08-16-2018, 07:12 PM

I do my trips Monday to Friday
And on the shoulder months
Forget weekends ,long weekends and July and August (usually)

Same places but without the people .

No worries and I tend to get more when there is less.

RVs and trailers and the weekend “glamper” is the reason for the issues you mentioned and why camping sucks.