Record high fuel prices in 2008 prevented the Rollin-Turtles Camping Club from rolling as far as usual.
JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, January 4, 2009 12:00 am
Record high fuel prices in 2008 prevented the Rollin-Turtles Camping Club from rolling as far as usual.
The Lincoln-based club, consisting of 27 families, camped at four Nebraska state parks, all within 90 miles of Lincoln. Members Earl and Jan Franklin said they found the parks filled with more Nebraskans cutting back on miles to save money.
“Our clubs all pulled our campouts closer to home,” said Earl Franklin, eastern Nebraska district director of Family Campers and RVers, a national group that sponsors nine camping clubs in the state.
The anecdote supports conventional wisdom, which predicted vacationers on a budget would flock to state parks last year.
So much for conventional wisdom.
Sales of park permits in 2008 hit a five-year low, said Roger Kuhn, assistant director of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
The agency sold nearly 222,000 daily park permits through October, a decrease of 15,000 from the same 10 months in 2007. Annual permit sales dropped by nearly 6,000 last year.
A single permit — $20 for annual; $4 for daily — allows a vehicle with multiple passengers to enter a park. Permits sales represent the largest funding source for operating and maintaining the 86 properties in the state park system, so sales trends are watched closely by the commission.
Last year’s dip in sales has already prompted the commission to delay filling vacant parks jobs, Kuhn said.
A closer look at the numbers shows the corresponding drop in park visitation wasn’t spread evenly across the state.
“Generally speaking, the parks near the population centers did a little better; the parks that were more remote didn’t,” he said.
This is where high gas prices may have had an effect.
For example, state parks such as Eugene T. Mahoney and Platte River, along with state recreation areas such as Branched Oak and Fremont Lakes, saw slight increases in visitation. All are within about an hour’s drive of the state’s two largest cities.
But perennial boating, camping and reunion hot spots such as Lake McConaughy, Merritt Reservoir and Fort Robinson all experienced dips in visitation, Kuhn said. All three are in some of the most scenic areas of Nebraska, but hundreds of miles from Lincoln and Omaha.
Weather during the seven-month camping season from April through October has as much effect on park visitation as high gas and diesel prices, Kuhn said.
Flooding rains, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in May and June didn’t inspire Nebraskans to sleep in a tent or RV. From July on, however, the weather was quite favorable for camping and other outdoor activities.
But that’s about when gas prices spiked into uncharted territory.
“When fuel prices shot up, I think there was certainly some sticker shock among people who thought, ‘We’ve got to slow down driving much of anywhere,’” Kuhn said.
Toward the end of the season, beautiful weather across the state seemed to get people out and about, regardless of fuel prices, he said.
Al Stone of Omaha is a camping enthusiast who pulls a 35-foot trailer with a diesel pickup. He said he gets between 11 and 13 miles per gallon.
With diesel prices approaching $5 a gallon last summer, he and his wife, Joan, decided to stay in campgrounds in Nebraska.
The couple also served as volunteer hosts for a month at Mahoney State Park near Ashland, the state’s most popular park. Every site was occupied during the weekends and most were taken during the week, he said.
Most campers at Mahoney came from Nebraska or Iowa. One type of visitor the couple encountered in the past but didn’t see much of in 2008: families on long, cross-country trips.
Kuhn and other commission officials hope more Nebraskans spend a weekend or two at a state park in 2009. The roughly $18 million annual parks budget gets between 70 and 75 percent of its funding from user fees. Park permit sales represent the largest portion of user fees.
The other quarter of the parks budget comes from a general fund appropriation by the Legislature. That percentage has held roughly steady over the years while costs to operate and maintain parks have climbed, Kuhn said.
The same fuel prices that hurt visitation also hurt parks operating budgets.
To deal with increasing fuel and personnel costs, the agency has left vacant about two dozen positions in the parks division, Kuhn said.
Depending upon how the upcoming Legislative session comes out, the agency may have to consider reducing services, activities, mowing and trash collection at parks, Kuhn said. Other cost savings measures may also be considered.
Meanwhile, parks officials will hope for a double fortune of continued low fuel prices and nice weather come spring.
“Hopefully it doesn’t get to a point where it gets so desperate you have to make really tough decisions,” he said.
Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.