A Portrait Of National Park System Campgrounds

Mather Campground on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park had the highest occupancy of all national park campgrounds in Fiscal 2018, with more than 154,000 campers. It also has a large amount of deferred maintenance/NPS file

Across the National Park System, there are 1,421 campgrounds, holding 27,513 campsites. Deferred maintenance needs for those campgrounds is nearly $332 million, according to the National Park Service.

While the Park Service does have a plan for dealing with deferred maintenance in campgrounds, it won't erase the deficiencies and needed repairs overnight. Currently the agency has plans to address 559 projects in campgrounds at a cost of $114 million from fiscal 2019 through fiscal 2024. Thirty-four million dollars would be spent on road and parking lot issues in the campgrounds, $17 million on water projects (water systems, water lines, etc), $16 million on comfort stations, and $1 million on electrical hookups.

Additionally, the work list shows 44 projects involving tent pads, 20 projects involving showers, eight projects involving dump stations, and 44 projects involving fire rings.

The NPS report on the state of its campgrounds was compiled for a subcommittee of the Interior Department's Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee. A draft report recently prepared by that subcommittee for top Interior Department officials calls for upgrading campground amenities to cater to campers that want WiFi, food options, and other improvements. The Park Service recognizes those desires.

"Many NPS campgrounds have a rustic charm to them, but many are in need of some level of modernization or rehabilitation to either meet visitor expectations or safety requirements," the Park Service overview of its campgrounds said. "The NPS does not intend to modernize every campground but strives to make smart, consistent decisions on when to modernize or rehabilitate a campground based on the park’s unique circumstances, local market and financial factors, and applicable policies and regulations. In many cases, the investment of modernization and maintenance is cost prohibitive."

Two examples of improvements being made in some units of the National Park System that the NPS document called out were:

* Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan this year was renovating the comfort stations showers to make them Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant in Platte River Campground for $99,000.

* Next year, Chickasaw National Recreational Area in Oklahoma is expected to replace shower assemblies, including associated electrical and plumbing, at Point and Buckthorn campgrounds for $54,000. 

"The NPS works to target projects for modernization investments that concurrently improve the visitor experience at high use facilities, reduce deferred maintenance, and limit ongoing operational liability," the Park Service document said.

That said, the agency "cannot feasibly modernize every campground nor do all resources dictate upgrades. Nonetheless, the NPS must be able to consistently and defensibly determine when the park’s unique circumstances, local market and financial factors, visitor expectations, and applicable policies and regulations support such investment," it added.

While Interior's Subcommittee on Recreation Enhancement Through Reorganization is suggesting that private operators be given more opportunities to handle campground upgrades and show how they would do it through five to 10 pilot projects in the park system, the Park Service is at work to develop a long-range vision for campground upgrades.

The team is engaging hospitality services contractors, CBRE, Inc. and CHM Government Services, to investigate the market support, required analysis, and related business practices to support a campground modernization and rehabilitation strategy. The study will:

• Assist in understanding current and developing future expectations for camping

• Develop a report that details considerations and recommendations for the NPS to take into account during the development of a servicewide campground strategy

• Develop a repeatable framework that can be utilized at the park level to assess whether a campground modernization or rehabilitation project should occur

• Develop a generic model for the Service to use compare costs and revenues of campground operations under both a Service and concessioner-operated campground

• Conduct pilots to test the process and tools in the following six parks’ campgrounds: Great Smoky National Park, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Blue Ridge Parkway, Big Bend National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Olympic National Park.

"Concurrent with the completion of the servicewide campground strategy, the Denver Service Center will develop standard design elements for amenities identified in the strategy for NPS campground modernization," the Park Service document said.