Re: [Paddlewise] attn. Apostles Islands Paddlers

Chuck Holst wrote:

Sarah wrote:

> >Last year for the first time, our club had real trouble finding spots to
> >camp on the islands, although we usually don't schedule our trips far in
> >advance,  [snip]

> I'm frustrated by this, too. Because the outfitters camp on the Park
> Service reservation phone the first day group permits become available,
> Andy Knapp has for the last few years had trouble reserving the group site
> for the traditional Stockton Island Rendezvous. Up till a couple of years
> ago, it was possible to reserve as late as April a group site on Sand
> Island for both Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. This year, the
> Sand Island sites were already booked for Saturday when I called in
> February. I was able to book a site for Sunday, but we will have to camp
> somewhere on the mainland Saturday night.
> 
> It is definitely time to talk to the Park Service. For my part, I will
> propose that non-commercial groups and individuals be given preference in
> the reservation system. One way to do this would be to allow them to make
> reservations earlier than the commercial outfitters, in the case of group
> sites, by two to four weeks; in the case of individual sites, by five to
> seven days. Though this would not help the spontaneous paddler, I think it
> would make the situation more equitable than it is now.

Probably the interests of the commercial outfitters will not be well-served by
that proposal, Chuck.  They need firm dates well in advance so they can
advertise their trips and set up guides, etc.

It might be more workable to allocate half the slots for commercial groups and
half for non-commercial groups and run the reservation phone-in system for each
in parallel (same phone number to call; two lists).  That way, each interest
group has good access in advance.

This is the system which now is used on Gwaii Haanas, in the Queen Charlottes. 
Previous to this year, GH had a reservation system in which outfitters took
their slice of the pie first, and on many prime dates, they took the whole
pie!  We got snuffed in '99, but were easily able to make reservations for '00
in February.  To see a description of how Parks Canada does it, hit: 
http://fas.sfu.ca/parkscan/gwaii/ and search for the info packet.

-- 
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR
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