Hi folks- Warning: this post may be completely uninteresting unless you are planning trips to the Apostle Islands this year... Some friends called my attention to the Trek and Trail catalog for this year. They are the biggest outfitter/guide service in the Apostle Islands, and have long been one of the main kayak users of the islands. This year however, they seem to have taken a saturation approach to booking their trips. They have 4 overnight trips scheduled weekly Memorial Day through Labor Day, 3 of them weekend trips with Friday/Saturday night stays mainly on Sand and Oak Islands. In the case of Sand, they have two camping sites scheduled every Saturday night. This leaves only two small sites on the island for every other outfitter, club, or, god help them, individual user. In addition, they have weekly multi-day trips scheduled to the outer islands now, including Michigan and Outer Island. Most of the outer Islands have only one campsite (Michigan, Outer, Cat, Ironwood, Devil's), so with one party camping there these islands are "closed". 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, and it looks even worse for this year. Weekend space on any of the islands is now extremely hard to find, with even "wilderness" camping permits being scarce (possibly because non-guided groups/individuals are taking this option when they can't get anything else). I should point out that Trek and Trail are the biggest outfitter in the Apostles, but by no means the only one. I guess I am a wee bit frusrated at the high proportion of permits/sites issued to outfitters, and am wondering whether other Apostles' paddlers feel the same way. Also wondering whether it is time to talk to the Park Service about the problem... Sarah Ohmann *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
At 09:35 AM 3/13/00 -0600, Sarah Ohmann wrote: > >I guess I am a wee bit frusrated at the high proportion of permits/sites >issued to outfitters, and am wondering whether other Apostles' paddlers feel >the same way. Also wondering whether it is time to talk to the Park Service >about the problem... > Sarah, the short answer is yes, it is time. It sounds very much like a microcosm of the Grand Canyon problem. Of course, it's a microcosm of a lot of problems, that can all be rolled into one problem: too many people. I'm afraid I don't have any simple solutions for you, but I would certianly start out by having a friendly, non-confrontational discussion with the park manager about the problem. I've had a number of dealings with park service people over the years and have generally found the career professionals to be pretty reasonable people. You may not be able to solve the problem in a single call, and likely it will take some time, negotiations and possibly political pressure to work out -- but having a good friendly relationship with the signal caller in the beginning will do much to grease the skids. -- Wes *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Depending on which way the winds blow the drift ice we may be up in the Apostles next weekend. In the past the outfitters pretty much grabbed all of the group site reservations, but now they are taking the small campsites as well. We should start with a talk to the Rangers up there, but I think me want to consider some letter writing as well. I think it is safet to say that until the "hard water problem" diminishes we should have the Islands to ourselves, but this summer is going to be very frustrating when it comes to camp reservations. Wes Boyd wrote: > At 09:35 AM 3/13/00 -0600, Sarah Ohmann wrote: > > > > >I guess I am a wee bit frusrated at the high proportion of permits/sites > >issued to outfitters, and am wondering whether other Apostles' paddlers feel > >the same way. Also wondering whether it is time to talk to the Park Service > >about the problem... > > > Sarah, the short answer is yes, it is time. It sounds very much like a > microcosm of the Grand Canyon problem. > > Of course, it's a microcosm of a lot of problems, that can all be rolled > into one problem: too many people. > > I'm afraid I don't have any simple solutions for you, but I would certianly > start out by having a friendly, non-confrontational discussion with the > park manager about the problem. I've had a number of dealings with park > service people over the years and have generally found the career > professionals to be pretty reasonable people. You may not be able to solve > the problem in a single call, and likely it will take some time, > negotiations and possibly political pressure to work out -- but having a > good friendly relationship with the signal caller in the beginning will do > much to grease the skids. > > -- Wes > > *************************************************************************** > PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not > to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission > Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net > Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net > Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ > *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Patrick Maun wrote: > > >At 9:55 AM -0600 3/15/00, Chuck Holst wrote: > >It is definitely time to talk to the Park Service. [SNIP] > > Perhaps a letter campaign from all club members and individuals in > the area. I think we can make the case that what this is doing is > closing off the islands to kayakers in that guided tours generally > cater to first time and beginner paddlers leaving the rest of us SOL. > I'm know that more experienced paddlers also go guided, but I think > that for the most part it's the newbies. And don't get me wrong, > guided trips are a great way to teach safe paddling and camping.[snip] > > How have other paddling communities dealt with this? I can imagine > this is a big problem out west. Some places (e.g., San Juans, Pacific Rim Park for Broken Group paddling) use the hog-trough system: firstest and biggest gets the mostest. Others, e.g., Gwaii Haanas, use a parallel reservation system (see my other post for that). Things are so bad in the San Juans that traditional launch points have been drying up, from what I hear. (I do not paddle in the San Juans during the high season, because it is so crowded. Have paddled there on the shoulder season (March), and things were nice and mellow.) -- Dave Kruger Astoria, OR *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Hi Dave, So you have booked for the charlottes this summer? Do you have route planned yet? Bill Pierson Bowen Island BC Dave Kruger wrote: > 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 > *************************************************************************** > PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not > to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission > Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net > Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net > Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ > *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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