Campground Hosting

[egilbe]

I picked the perfect spring,summer,fall to host a campground for the USFS in Black Hills SD. Perfect weather compared to New England. Also no bugs,dry air,cool nights. Amazing. Lot's of good hiking in the hills. 2nd oldest mountains in the world.

I'm camphosting in Oregon. There was a thunderstorm the day we arrived, a month later we had a cold snap and it rained for three days...and that's been it since may 10th. We are expecting firebans to go into effect soon. I thought it was a great Summer gig until 4th of July week. We are on Deroit Lake so all the entitled boaters came out. One 15 or 16 year old girl fell off a pull behind raft and got run over by the boat that circled around to pick her up. It cut off half her foot and sliced up her leg. Some Ukrainian jetskiers brought her to shore and tied a tourniquet to stop the blood loss. She was life-flighted out. 2 days later, a dog died jumped out of the back of the pickup he was tied in and hung himself. Another camper came up to me asking for a bandages because she cut her thumb and forefinger. I got out the "new" first aid kit and found it only contained alcohol swabs and bandaids. I had to get out my hiking first aid kit that actually had useful stuff in it. Took a day off to go siteseeing and came back to an ambulance loading up a camper with a broken ankle. She was at her campsite for all of 10 minutes and wanted to go down to the beach and decided to follow an eroded gully down to the water and slipped wearing water shoes. Luckily, there was an ER nurse camped nearby. All I had to do was write up an incident report. I swear to God this campground is cursed.

The good things...week days are a completely different energy. No party crowd. Deer wander through the campgrounds when its quiet. It may be because they are trying to avoid mountain lions. There is a nice 2.1 mile hiking trail we can hit in the morning and be back before most campers are awake. Stahlman Point is a good trail to exercise on. Otters play in the lake. Only issue I have with the otters is that they eat and poop on the dock. Fishing is good, but everything seems to be hatchery raised.

If we decide to do this again, we want a place off the water. I'm sick of telling people to not fish or swim off the dock even though there is a 4'x8' sign they have to walk right by in order to flout the rules. Asking people to leash dogs is annoying. If you want your dog to run free, don't go to a campground.

Being semi-retired is tough...

 

[CaptCaper]

I'm camphosting in Oregon. There was a thunderstorm the day we arrived, a month later we had a cold snap and it rained for three days...and that's been it since may 10th. We are expecting firebans to go into effect soon. I thought it was a great Summer gig until 4th of July week. We are on Deroit Lake so all the entitled boaters came out. One 15 or 16 year old girl fell off a pull behind raft and got run over by the boat that circled around to pick her up. It cut off half her foot and sliced up her leg. Some Ukrainian jetskiers brought her to shore and tied a tourniquet to stop the blood loss. She was life-flighted out. 2 days later, a dog died jumped out of the back of the pickup he was tied in and hung himself. Another camper came up to me asking for a bandages because she cut her thumb and forefinger. I got out the "new" first aid kit and found it only contained alcohol swabs and bandaids. I had to get out my hiking first aid kit that actually had useful stuff in it. Took a day off to go siteseeing and came back to an ambulance loading up a camper with a broken ankle. She was at her campsite for all of 10 minutes and wanted to go down to the beach and decided to follow an eroded gully down to the water and slipped wearing water shoes. Luckily, there was an ER nurse camped nearby. All I had to do was write up an incident report. I swear to God this campground is cursed.

The good things...week days are a completely different energy. No party crowd. Deer wander through the campgrounds when its quiet. It may be because they are trying to avoid mountain lions. There is a nice 2.1 mile hiking trail we can hit in the morning and be back before most campers are awake. Stahlman Point is a good trail to exercise on. Otters play in the lake. Only issue I have with the otters is that they eat and poop on the dock. Fishing is good, but everything seems to be hatchery raised.

If we decide to do this again, we want a place off the water. I'm sick of telling people to not fish or swim off the dock even though there is a 4'x8' sign they have to walk right by in order to flout the rules. Asking people to leash dogs is annoying. If you want your dog to run free, don't go to a campground.

Being semi-retired is tough...

Don't want to hi jack the thread anymore but we should start a new one called "proper camping etiquette."
I know other hosts who do the lake campgrounds and they have the same huge issues. I have a small primitive one and it's much easier so far. They don't read signs at all here either. Or the rules for this campground making the job harder. Luckly most campers are good. And I tell them thanks for being good. But there are one's who are sleezy in their ways. Try not to pay,won't put the dog on leash,leave butts all around,etc.