Camphost Confessions
Camphost Confessions is a podcast exploring the realities, challenges, and humor of life as a campground host. Hosted on the road (currently in Oregon), it offers engaging stories, insider tips, and candid conversations about the ups and downs of working and living in the great outdoors. Whether you’re a seasoned camper, aspiring camp host, or just love behind-the-scenes tales from the campground, this podcast delivers a mix of practical advice and lighthearted storytelling.
Camphost Confessions
Part 2 The One Where We Deep Dive into the Origins of Camping and the Rise of the Concessionair
Hey it’s Healy and Kelsey at Camphost Confessions! Send us a text!
The episode explores the current staffing crisis in national parks and its impacts on visitor experiences and park management. We discuss historical context, the transition to privatization, the importance of camp hosts, and the complex dynamics between funding, conservation, and public enjoyment of our natural spaces.
• Overview of staffing issues and federal job cuts
• Historical significance of the Civilian Conservation Corps
• The rise of privatization in park management through concessionaires
• The role and challenges of camp hosts in maintaining facilities
• Financial implications of privatization and funding struggles
• Emergency response and safety concerns in understaffed parks
• Call to action for audience involvement in conservation efforts
For episode notes and more content, support our podcast below!
I don't know where I can fit this in and I don't want to get way too political because most of the people I love don't agree with me but pertaining to our life and the parks, there's a couple things that I read from the National Park Service this morning. Do you mind if I? No, please do. And I've done my fact checking too. So I'm not, I'm not just spreading lies. Okay, let's see. So these are all within the past 24 hours, including individuals with severe physical, psychiatric or intellectual disabilities, as well as veterans, are being let go. The next one is that the Forest Service will fire roughly 3,400 employees. The next one this week, approximately 200,000 federal workers have been let go. This one upsets me the most the removal of a transgender reference from the National Park Service's Stonewall website wasn't done by NPS staff. Yeah, they removed the t and now the q um this morning.
Speaker 1:Our parks are in chaos. We've seen firsthand how this hiring freeze, the resending of hundreds of job offers and the layoff of five percent of nps staff have left us overwhelmed and shorthanded. Now, as we approach our busiest months, we're expected to manage record-breaking crowds with a fraction of the workforce we need. It's not just the staffing crisis, our day-use reservation system designed to protect park resources and improve the visitor experience. That would be the scheduling reservations that they're talking about, which you might not like, but it's definitely needed. So, anyway, they're designed to protect park resources and improve the visitor experience, and it appears it's unlikely to return at all this year Without it. Overcrowding will strain our fragile ecosystems even further. Efforts to preserve these lands for future generations are being abandoned before our eyes. On February 6th, we learned that the administration had rescinded even more job offers, this time for seasonal law enforcement rangers, wildland firefighters and EMTs. These are roles directly tied to public safety, supposedly exempt from the hiring freeze, but now critical emergency response positions are being cut, leaving both staff and visitors at risk. We take pride in protecting and maintaining these parks, but we are being set up to fail. I just think it's important to know what's going on.
Speaker 1:If you enjoy spending any time outside and you visit any of these places which, if you're listening to this, I'm sure you do you're probably the person that pulls over to take a picture of the random geological marker. You're probably the person that is getting their stamps and coins at all of the park service visitor centers. You might be the person that really loves backpacking and you rely on the permit service and the backcountry rangers that are out there to protect you, like what is it's? And really the park service is. That's just top tier of the outdoors.
Speaker 1:And I feel like, for me at least, no matter what job I'm doing, I'm gonna like do it to the best of my ability, I'm gonna know the best of the most that I can. I'm gonna know how, like, if I were 10 steps up in this field, how should I be acting and what standards, like should I be upholding. So, for the rest of us, I like camp workers, we should be like emulating and watching the forest or not also the Forest Service, but the Park Service and kind of just following their lead Right, like do as they do believe as they believe they are, they know what they're doing and it's just like devastating to watch it, yeah they're the end, all be all of everything with the parks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just like devastating to watch it. Yeah, they're the end. All be all of everything with the parks yeah, it's just.
Speaker 1:And from seeing like the back side of it and knowing, like how truly the important it is to have these people, and from going to different parks and seeing the different staffings and like knowing why sometimes you have a shitty experience, and then now, with the knowledge that we have, knowing like okay, well, it's probably this staffing issue or like this might have happened in maintenance and this is why I had to wait in line for four hours, but like knowing how important and how much goes on.
Speaker 2:So much goes on behind the scenes like so much goes behind, uh, goes on behind the scenes that doesn't get reported.
Speaker 1:Like I don't know like reported to the public, public that you just don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2:It's like, it's rated, like. Oh, I don't know. Like did I have to write a social media post about someone spray painting bright orange swastikas at an overlook in the North Cascades? The maintenance staff had to scrub that off and it took days. And who? If they're not there, then who is?
Speaker 1:because they're seasonal workers and even though they're locals and they live there and they're employed each year, yeah, their jobs are gonna be, yeah there's gonna yeah, because um a career seasonals that's uh been on the chopping block or they've been offered buyouts, or so when you they're so new that it doesn't that they're gonna be the first ones cut so by the time you get to diablo, overlook, you're probably coming from seattle because nowhere is convenient to get there from, so you've been in the car for like three hours at minimum.
Speaker 1:You might have come from the airport. You pull up to this overlook, not only are there swastikas painted everywhere and there's graffiti everywhere there, there's trash littering the ground, cars are double parked and guess what? There hasn't been a bathroom because, like we were talking about, there's not services for 76 miles. And guess what? Those bathrooms that are the pits in the ground they're going to be full, right, and without government funding they're not going to be pumped are going to be full right and without government funding they're not going to be pumped right like so your experience.
Speaker 1:And then, if there wasn't somebody standing there making sure that boats aren't in, oh my god, like the water supplies are going to be fucked up and like just so, if, if, everything is left unchecked outdoors. Yeah, it's just like important to me that everybody knows what's going on and how it, and you know, this is what matters to us and this is the life we live. So it's heavy on our minds and I want to talk about it.
Speaker 2:It's one of the things that's close to our hearts, because I worked for um, the national park service, over the summer and we were at the north cascades and um. Overall, yeah, I had a really great experience there and, but way before I.
Speaker 1:I mean everybody loves the national park everybody loves before I met you, I had decided my next venture, after I had hit all the 50 states, was going to be 40 national parks. By the time I'm 40.
Speaker 2:I don't think you would have cared so much about the employees.
Speaker 1:No, I wouldn't have cared as much about the employees because I was like I don't want to be a government worker.
Speaker 2:Like it's cool that they have a volunteer program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just not for me, but it's cool.
Speaker 2:But I don't think that they're going to be able to replace all of their full time staff with volunteers at this point. It's like no, unless you know I mean they're all like Keith. I mean then, yeah, that's well, there's not enough of him in the world. There's not enough Keith's out there.
Speaker 1:All right, yeah, so thanks for listening to me on my pedestal. Oh, there's our barking dog and it's early, good time to stop.
Speaker 1:So, as of today, we are at the closest Thousand Trails to our new job, because Thousand Trails is where we live, park to park, baby, when we don't have a job. And something that happens when you're camping in the winter is the pipes burst and water line when water lines freeze. And this park had something happen and the water was off for like four days, had something happen and the water was off for like four days. So such is life in a campground in the winter you have to go fill up water and not have a flushing toilet and shower available, so things get rough. But the water came back on and we are so thankful and it's really, really pretty where we are and there's a ton of bunnies. I'm loving that, and so is Cascade.
Speaker 1:He has nearly hung himself like quite a few times, going after them on his tie out. Uh, he's a total snow dog and he's just living it up. There's like probably a foot of snow outside or maybe less, but enough that he's happy, and so is rags. So we're happy to be here and thankful that our cars are drivable and just hoping we get to the next location. So that's enough about us. Now we're going to talk about the history of camping and the origins of campgrounds, the rise of camp hosting and how the government decided to outsource it all to private companies, aka concessionaires. Spoiler alert it involves a lot of bureaucracy and just a little bit of chaos that's right.
Speaker 2:We're covering everything from the Civilian Conservation Corps and their role in building America's first structured campgrounds to the Granger-Thai Act, the moment the federal government said you know what? Let's just hand over campground management to someone else and hope for the best. So grab a camp chair, pour yourself a lukewarm cup of instant coffee and let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Camping in its earliest form wasn't a hobby. It was called survival. Before industrialization, people camped because they had to, whether they were explorers, pioneers or soldiers on the move.
Speaker 2:Right, lewis and Clark weren't finding themselves on a soul-searching journey. They were just trying to not freeze to death while mapping rivers. But then the 19th century rolled around as cities get crowded, and suddenly people wanted to go back to nature for fun, and thus the recreational camping movement was born.
Speaker 1:One of the first recorded intentional camping trips was in 1861 when Frederick Gunn, an educator, took 30 of his students on a two-week 42-mile wilderness excursion and hike in Connecticut. Did you know he's like the original outdoor educator.
Speaker 2:That's insane. I had no idea. I had never heard of him.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, he's so cool. He had this boarding school and he wanted to teach his students self-reliance, leadership and appreciation for nature. He sounds like our kind of guy. He's super progressive and focused on developing ethically responsible and resilient students. His trips were well-loved and continued for years, laying out the groundwork for modern America on how to both respect and enjoy nature.
Speaker 2:Gunn was definitely on to something, because soon after, camping and outdoor groups slowly started popping up. In 1874, the Young Women's Christian Association so the YWCA established its first campground in Pennsylvania catering only to women. It took men another decade to open the first YMCA, which is still in operation in New York. In 1910, we had the Boy Scouts opening their first camp, followed by the Girl Scouts in 1912. Then in 1916, the National Park Service, or MPS, was created. In the 30s, development began with 34 recreation demonstration areas, which was the original name for campgrounds. These were later turned over to the state agencies, One of those being one that you've told me about going to was hickory run state park in pennsylvania oh, I love that place.
Speaker 1:So just like that. Thanks to one cool dude with a vision, the golden age of camping began, or at least the idea began. But who actually carried it out?
Speaker 2:all right, let's um. Let's talk about the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC, aka one of the best things to come out of the Great Depression In 1933,.
Speaker 1:FDR or.
Speaker 2:Felino Felino, felino Delano.
Speaker 1:That should be our next dog, felino President theme yeah.
Speaker 2:I've got regs Felino. That's hilarious next dog.
Speaker 1:Keep up the president theme.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got rags, felino. That's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Felino. Wow, okay, I do love Roosevelt for a dog though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I always wanted a Roo. That's a good one. Fdr FDR. Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched this program as a part of the New Deal to provide jobs for unemployed young men. And what did they do? They built.
Speaker 1:And by built we mean they were responsible for a massive chunk of the outdoor recreation infrastructure we still use today Roads, trails, visitor centers, fire towers, picnic areas, fire pits, cabins, campgrounds, even lodges and Healy, you'll love this. They built the Tioga Pass entrance in Yosemite, the one with the rocks. And they did all of the repair work on the Wawona Tunnel, that's the tunnel that has the rock bridge over it at Yosemite, oh okay, and it opens up to the Valley View that has just everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Half Dome and El Cap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Wawona Tunnel View parking lot is on the other side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah so they, they did it all. Uh, if you've ever camped at a national park and thought like, wow, this place is really well put together, there's a good chance the ccc had a hand in it. Their main focus was on natural resource conservation and public land improvements oh, and you know what is?
Speaker 2:a lot of ranger station, the Forest Service ranger station districts where their compounds are. Those were mostly probably all built by the CCCs. I've been on quite a few. I've even got to stay on some.
Speaker 1:And the old closed down Forest Service stations, like the ones way out of Salmon. Lesac Road or like the ones way out at Salmon Lissac Road.
Speaker 2:Or like the one that we hiked to in the Ventana Wilderness in California the Adobe House, just right before I broke my foot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that time we lived in the wilderness.
Speaker 2:That one time we were just walking down an old highway that goes through the wilderness to Big Sur. It was so gorgeous, it was such a crazy day, all right. So, yeah, these guys, they built like 800 state parks, 125,000 miles of roads and hiking trails and hundreds of campgrounds. 125,000 miles of roads and hiking trails and hundreds of campgrounds. They developed everything at Deception Pass State Park, from the buildings to the trails and even made the ranger housing at Mount Rainier. And, the wildest part, they were doing it for $30 a month, which, yeah, that sounds criminally low, but this was the 1930s and that money was meant to help support their families. So 25 of it was actually returned home.
Speaker 1:They were basically the original Leave no Trace movement, except instead of just picking up trash, they were constructing the entire campground from scratch, while simultaneously reforesting the country, planting over 3 billion trees and spearheading wildfire prevention by building thousands of lookout towers.
Speaker 2:Not just that, they were flood control too, building dams. They had a huge role in the construction of the Bonneville Dam, which is on the Columbia, that's the one down the road from Multnomah Falls outside of Portland.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, they did everything. It's so interesting how much they accomplished in such a short amount of time. They closed after nine years. There had been over three million young men that had worked in the program and it ended in 1942. As funding was reallocated to the war effort and many of these men would end up being drafted.
Speaker 2:All of that to say. Without the CCC, most roads, trails, parking lots, campgrounds, visitor centers you name it and parks across the country would just not exist today. Without them, the conservation movement would have been decades behind, lacking the foundational infrastructure that continues to benefit hundreds of millions of visitors today.
Speaker 1:We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. If you've ever wondered why some campgrounds have well-maintained facilities while others make you question every life choice you've ever made, stick around.
Speaker 2:All right, fellow wanderers and campfire philosophers, quick question have you ever been having a bad day and just needed the perfect way to express it? Well, now you can. Over at my red bubble shop, healy's designs, I've got the perfect angry remy sweatshirt waiting for you. You know, for those days when everything's going wrong, your coffee spills, your kid is feral and you're one more inconvenience away from absolutely losing your shit, just throw on that sweatshirt, let the world know you're done and embrace the chaos in style. But if you're more into wholesome winter vibes, check out my design featuring a cozy little airstream parked in a snowy wonderland, because sometimes life is actually peaceful and beautiful when it's not actively trying to test you, which I cried for two hours straight the other day. I can tell you all of my living style has been definitely tested lately, anyway. So go browse my shop, grab a sticker or a hoodie or something to make your rig or your mood a little cooler. Just search Healy's Designs on RebelBull or hit the link in the show notes. Support a fellow road warrior. And remember every sticker you buy gets me one step closer to buying an RV that doesn't actively plot my demise. Thanks you guys.
Speaker 2:So camping was booming and campgrounds were popping up left and right. But with more people comes more problems right. You can't just leave a bunch of unsupervised campers in the woods and expect things to go smoothly. Originally, park rangers balanced law enforcement and campground management, but as roads became better, more people were buying cars and people were discovering travel trailers, and World War II ended, collectively creating a giant boom in the outdoor recreation industry. Enter the Camp Host.
Speaker 1:So Camp House started out as volunteers usually retirees or experienced outdoors people who helped keep campgrounds running in exchange for a free campsite, mostly being a face for the questions and a full-time presence in hopes of voluntary compliance. It sounds like a great deal, right? Well, fast forward a few decades and Camp Post aren't just handing out trail maps anymore. They're cleaning bathrooms, enforcing quiet hours, sometimes breaking up fights over picnic tables and managing lines of cars miles long. All hoping for a campsite and managing lines of cars miles long all hoping for a campsite.
Speaker 2:By the 80s, both federal and state parks had rolled out structured host programs, still mainly on a volunteer basis but providing much more structure than the volunteers of the 50s had. Soon after the Forest Service, blm and NPS established paid hosting positions to better manage ever-increasing visitor traffic. Private campgrounds like KOA, which is Campgrounds of America, and Thousand Trails also followed suit in the 1980s, hiring their first hosts for roles similar to those on government land. But the evolution of private campgrounds is much harder to track. The evolution of private campgrounds is much harder to track. Eventually, for Forest Service, blm and MPS campground and recreation areas, the government decided you know what? Let's just have the private companies manage these campgrounds. Which brings us to the Green Dreads Eye Act.
Speaker 1:All right, trail lovers and dirtbag dreamers, if you're looking for a way to give back to the wild places we all love, listen up, because the Washington Trails Association, wta, needs you and yes, we can see where our listeners are, so we're aiming this at where there's the most of you. Yeah, we're not affiliated with WTA, we just really believe in what they do. Washington Trails Association runs volunteer work parties all over Washington helping to maintain and restore trails so we can all keep enjoying those epic hikes. Whether you're fixing up a muddy section, clearing down trees or just getting outside with some like-minded folks, volunteering with the WTA is one of the best ways to protect the trails we love.
Speaker 2:I have something to interject here. You're not going to believe it, but I know that some major corporations like Boeing and Amazon allow their employees to utilize volunteer days with organizations and it counts towards something in their company.
Speaker 1:So does Thousand Trails.
Speaker 2:Oh well, there you go. So go out and volunteer, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the best part no experience is needed. They provide the tools, the training and the work plan. You just show up ready to get your hands a little dirty. The work plan you just show up ready to get your hands a little dirty. Want to join in? It's easy. Head to wtaorg slash volunteer to check out their volunteer calendar. There's tons of events. I checked it out and they're like booked months out. There's just all kinds of stuff going on all over the state so you can find an event near you and sign up, whether it's a single day work party or a full backcountry trip.
Speaker 1:Every hour of volunteer work helps keep Washington's trails open and accessible for everyone. So if you've ever hiked a beautifully maintained trail and thought, wow, this is amazing, just know that volunteers made that happen after the CCC. Now it's your turn to be a part of that magic. Go to wtaorg slash volunteer, sign up for a work party and let's hit the trails, this time with a shovel in hand. We'll see you out there. In 1950, the government passed the Granger Thigh Act, which allowed the US Forest Service to hand over campground management to private businesses. But I don't mean the same private that I mean when we say like Jellystone, koa, thousand Trails. I'm talking about private concessionaires. So this allowed them to hand over the management to private concessionaire businesses. I know we just jumped back 30 years, but this act wasn't widely utilized for concessionaire managed campgrounds until the 1980s. That's when federal funding shifted away from public lands and conservation and private business interests finally grew as the profit at the end of the tunnel lit up.
Speaker 2:The logic behind the handover Private companies could handle maintenance and operations, while the government focused on conservation. This sounds really great in theory, but it does not work in practice. Let's cover some basics of the Granger Thay Act. Concessionaire staff spend a designated amount of hours, decided upon by the Forest Service, working on improvement projects, with a very small percentage of money that concessionaires are required to put into the Granger Thigh Fund.
Speaker 2:A key provision of this act requires concessionaires to pay a percentage of their gross revenue to the Forest Service, which is usually between 3 and 15 percent. While some money goes to the Treasury and is kept with the US Forest Service, a very tiny portion is put into a fund that is reallocated back to concessionaires who are required by law to use it for maintenance and repairs in the parks they are operating. So Grangerthai money has come back and with it, hosts and maintenance workers repair and paint picnic tables, reset or replace fire pits, repaint bathrooms, repair broken site posts and minor road repairs such as potholes. Sometimes this money is pooled between adjacent districts and sometimes it isn't. It depends on the contract that they have, and each contract has different stipulations and saying that they only use a very small percentage. Very small percentage. These companies bring in tens of millions of dollars annually um depending on the locations that they have.
Speaker 1:It's unreal the amount of money that goes through their hands and it's very, very.
Speaker 2:We've been finding it very difficult to find out how much these companies are making and finding out how much they're making at every single location. And the locations that are, let's say they want. Let's say they get Lake Cachise. A concessionaire gets awarded Lake Cachise. Well, well, they're not just getting late cachis, they have to also get the lower financially um, or like lower, uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1:They don't bring in as much income yeah, they also get the locations that are less desirable and less popular so there's gonna be some that will still be in those as well some will be so, so undesirable that they won't even be staffed with a permanent staff.
Speaker 2:They'll just be checked like once a week and remote yeah and the um or like wish they will defer maintenance on those for years and like remember that one year at cachis they were doing the tinaway cabin. I'm like why what? I didn't even know that was a part of our situation because we hadn't done it the year before right because it needed repairs.
Speaker 1:But it's crazy like think about the roads and the paving job and in cachis compared to salmon right, all of them.
Speaker 2:It's crazy where the money goes yeah, so it's pulled between districts and sometimes but all of the contracts are so wildly difficult, how the concessionaires will only use the money that's in the Granger-Thai Act fund and not use their money Like I don't know. Our last CEO made over $200,000 annually, so, and that is just what was reported publicly out of the $90 million.
Speaker 1:There's some shady shit going on with any cash handling. So imagine you have a bunch of people with all of this with grounds, with all of this cash that's coming in an envelope that's written on in pencil and then that's getting reported to somebody that's also taking their cut before they're passing it up to the Forest Service, and just you know it's a bare bones operation a lot of the time.
Speaker 2:Oh, and what can we do with the least amount of money? And if you're not able to get change from a camp host or somebody and let's say an entry is $15 and you're owed $5, don't ever think and say, go, oh well, I'll give you that $5. It's for the forest, because it will never, ever, ever see the forest.
Speaker 1:Right, and we're not making change for you, because making change at our house is just like not safe.
Speaker 2:That's so crazy. Anyway, my apologies.
Speaker 1:So there's like a ton of pro and cons. We're just going to kind of go over a lot of them and all of this. There's a lot of negatives, there's a lot of positives, but overall, like we're choosing to work for concessionaires, we obviously love the idea of it.
Speaker 2:It could just be so much better.
Speaker 1:We just yeah, we care so much that we're angry and want it to be better. So it. I feel like we might come off as like, oh fuck the man. But I mean, I, I love the idea and these are the jobs that I want to be working, right, but this is just the behind the scenes of it, right? So, uh, one of the pros would be, in theory, what the pro would be. Right, you would think, uh, there'd be better funding. On paper, the government is broke and, in theory, private concessionaire companies have money and they would be able to invest in the lands, so that could be a potential pro.
Speaker 2:That could be. If it was done, if it worked that way, right, if it worked that way Right, it could reduce government costs.
Speaker 1:You know, because private companies, private concessionaire companies, are taking over the operating expenses. However, government costs if it was properly staffed by the government, the government could be recouping their costs of maintenance and operations by collecting the fees and repocketing them into the federal government.
Speaker 1:Right, and if we not outsourcing, if we could just pay uh rec fee tech. Thirty six thousand dollars a year at every kiosk out there, yeah, that requires a fee. All of that money would go right back into the land and if you have the right pass, it's going to be free anyway. So, right matter, um, in theory, there could be more amenities. Sometimes there are, most of the time there aren't, right? Um?
Speaker 1:enhanced visitor services that is something that definitely happens because you're gonna have food retail, sometimes lodging yeah, like at yosemite, yeah and village from retail we mean everything from stickers stickers to starbucks, to a propane stove, to oh my gosh, the store that they put it, because she says all kinds of stuff, and I mean there's whole grocery stores and some of the park facilities but yeah, they're gonna sell you your firewood.
Speaker 2:Go ahead, ice and uh, I guess in california, water.
Speaker 1:So they sell water, but only in the summer yeah, so um, we've got cascade barking behind me because he's playing with ren, his best friend. Uh, I'll let you go over the next, the next ones all right.
Speaker 2:So this um encourages public and private partnerships. This, unfortunately, isn't always the case, and if you're interviewing for a campground job with a concessionaire, definitely encourage you to ask them about their relationship with the Forest Service or the Park Service. My last boss told us on day one that she didn't like them, nor did she get along with the Forest Service, and that was not the first time that day that my jaw hit the floor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it should be really telling on the experience that you're going to have with the Forest Service or with any of the law enforcement agencies helping to enforce the rules of the forest, and they're the ones that are going to respond to visitors that are out of compliance when concessionaires call for backup. We want them on our side. We want them on our side. We want them on our side.
Speaker 1:we don't want them to not show up you know it's like if you're the bartender, you want the cook to have your back, but you also want the cop that frequents to have your back, like we want. You want a good relationship if we're working there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to balance it all and um, the people that worked the day use area before we did at one of our locations had a terrible relationship with the locals. Um, that was appalling to me, and and that obviously put a massive strain with local law enforcement, where they wouldn't even bother to respond if there was 100 vehicles lining the road and nobody in them.
Speaker 1:And this day use area was off of a major highway, but the road that it was on was a one lane, like a true one lane. You're in a ditch and possibly dying if you go over the side a one lane, two mile private road. So the local relationship is so important because we're we're going through their property yep to yeah, it's an easement, an easement. An easement.
Speaker 2:An easement.
Speaker 1:An easement that the Original owner. The original owner donated, donated to the Forest Service prior to a state park being developed and the state park patrol said that he, him and the county and the sheriffs were all confused on who controlled the easement. So that's fun. Him and the county and the sheriffs were all confused on who controlled the easement. So that's fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so it also, in theory, it reduces maintenance backlogs. Private investors, private operators, invest in facility upkeep and infrastructure. Yes and no, I mean they know to put in the absolute bare minimum so that people keep coming back. Are they going to fix the one leak that's been happening at the entrance to a campground for five years? Someone has tried to find it. I think it finally got fixed. Finally got fixed.
Speaker 1:But like they might replace leaky faucets and broken parts, but they're never going to replace all of the plumbing in the lines Right and this stuff was built in the 30s Right, so it needs done at some point, because they want their bottom line, so the bare minimum.
Speaker 2:They want to stretch that as far as they can. So there's a lot of deferred maintenance and it's, you know, failing infrastructure yeah so we've seen a lot of like.
Speaker 1:We've saw in our last campground was our favorite campground that we've been in. It was in california. I mean our favorite anywhere, but it was in california. It was just phenomenal, but their road is like crumbling no, yeah, the road had washed out.
Speaker 1:It's a gorge that has up to a thousand foot drops. I don't know how far of a drop it is at this one point, but there's like an old crumbling parking lot and like fencing that doesn't block this big drop off the way it should, and the groundskeeper had told us that somebody died there.
Speaker 2:Last summer they fell to their death.
Speaker 1:So it's just like, and then a sign was put up that's like laminated, you know, but it's not even.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like there's just like caution tape it's. I mean. So they tried a little bit and it's like not a hit to the people that work there. Like the employees, I'm sure, gathered whatever they could to do the best they can, like on the lowest level, like on our level, right, but there's no care.
Speaker 1:Once you get above that to like a supervisor position, the everybody above that doesn't care about the individual campgrounds in the surrounding communities so like if you don't live there and you don't love it, then you're not gonna drive by every day and think shit, like I'm just driving my golf cart and somebody died right there, right, and I'm just hiking around, right. So yeah, it's just just there's a lot of failing infrastructure, but in theory it could be fixed by private concessionaires if they were required to put a larger percentage back in or if there were thousands and thousands of people with rigs and trailers and super seas and all of this shit.
Speaker 1:And it just it needs help.
Speaker 2:OK, so this also supposedly reduces risk for the government and it improves emergency response.
Speaker 1:But it just takes the liability off of the government. Yeah, it's just both of those, and I think that the idea of improving emergency response is that there's somebody on site 24-7.
Speaker 2:But just because somebody is there, Doesn't mean they know how to do emergency response.
Speaker 1:Right, because most of the jobs I've been to I haven't had emergency response training right and like we had a girl crack her head open, uh, at a waterfall yeah and um, they need a life flight.
Speaker 2:And we didn't even have a landline and everybody just shrugged yeah, a landline should be, even if it a payphone.
Speaker 1:That should be a requirement for a job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or Starlink they need to have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If you don't have a landline at minimum where you're going to be put, then I would not go unless there's Starlink. And not because I want to be inside watching Netflix, but because if somebody dies or gets hurt or gets attacked by a bear or there's a shooting and it's on your watch in your backyard you want to be able to call 911.
Speaker 2:I mean, we get this whole living off grid thing, but we're coming to an age where, like Wi-Fi or cellular service is no longer an amenity, it's a requirement.
Speaker 1:Because if you're 25 miles out from cell phone service, there's enough technology now that if you crack your head open or if you have a heart attack, you might not have to die.
Speaker 2:If we can get you there fast enough.
Speaker 1:So it's important.
Speaker 2:My first summer there was a lady that died in my campground.
Speaker 1:I think about that all the time, like with my dad, like he died so long ago a heart attack, but like if that would have happened now, right, oh my gosh. Like people live from heart attacks all the time because get there sooner and better technology. Yeah yeah, Somebody died in my campground in Maine before I got there too.
Speaker 2:An emergency response, I don't, aside from it being on the ground, sometimes you have to wait for, like law enforcement or forest service approval or, I don't know, like local agency approval.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of jurisdictional boundaries, but whenever something, whenever I've had to call 911 and something has been like an active, for real threat, not just like there's this asshole somebody has always come pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's normally the sheriff right.
Speaker 1:And just depends. It's been different everywhere. Yeah, whoever's closest when the call goes out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then one of the last pros is a longer season. Many concessionaire run sites can stay open longer than the government funded ones. Due to staffing and funding for the federal government, the first agency's programs to get cut are always going to be the environmental ones. So your parks are going to be cut, your forests so, um, they wouldn't be able to staff it and keep it open long enough so, even though I played devil's advocate on all of those and turned them into cons, we have we have the real cons yeah, now we have an entire list of actual cons.
Speaker 1:So if you have an idea on how to make this better, that'd be great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we would love to brainstorm, because we both want to see this whole thing overhauled and like a whole new situation well, I've been having um some conversations with your friend, chat with my friend chat gpt knew my fingers typing.
Speaker 2:I'm so fucking old I can't even talk last night I was showing you photos and I tried to zoom in on the picture with my fingers yeah, and it's like I was showing just just kidding, I was showing Kelsey physical images printed out from a Kodak camera and from the 80s Sepia toned, and I went to actually zoom in to show her somebody and she's like, wow, you just zoomed in. I'm like I didn't even notice, like I don't.
Speaker 1:What were you talking about?
Speaker 2:we gotta go get to the cons yeah, okay, so there's actual cons.
Speaker 1:Um, it reduces public oversight, so these private concessionaires can prioritize profit over conservation, so which we've pretty much gone over for you.
Speaker 2:But I think a lot of concessionaire businesses are started by somebody that's probably like us and like really cares into it, but you know, money changes they want to, but then um, the environmental part has no uh profitable return, and so pulling all the noxious weeds out, you know, and keeping those trails maintained within a campground doesn't really provide as much money as the running water it's kind of hard to prioritize profit and also have the outdoors ethic, ethical mindset that we want people to have right um another.
Speaker 1:It just the commercialization of public lands. Uh, public spaces risk becoming too based around profit-driven attractions and activities like yosemite is that was that you know what yosemite was, not that I'm thinking like grand canyon, like stores everywhere. I haven't been there yo somebody was not tourist trap whatsoever, like every building was appropriate for the place. You know it's like. It's like having a stucco mcdonald's in santa fe, like everything was appropriate and didn't stick out and look obnoxious well, it wasn't that commercialized.
Speaker 2:It'll be insanely commercialized.
Speaker 1:It was just like but not commercialized, they'll have a outlet mall in the middle of Glacier. But it wasn't. You know, I didn't feel like walking down a boardwalk on the East Coast when you're like, oh my God, tourist trap.
Speaker 2:Oh well, yosemite Village was shocking to me.
Speaker 1:Concessionaires keep it up Right Limited access. So some concessionaires restrict entry to paying customers, even for parking at trailheads, which is it's like, very. I've been so deep into the legalities of this. Yeah, I think it's illegal and it was meant to be illegal, but some of the concessionaire contracts are worded so that they may charge people for parking at trailheads. The one that we were in was not one of those, but in some it is okay and ours was doing that and had been, so lawsuit had been filed against them.
Speaker 2:Technically, the one that we just worked for said that they could only charge at trailheads if there was an amenity besides parking. So there had to be a bathroom available, right. And so what we're saying here is yeah, or what kelsey's saying is, even for just parking at a regular random pull-off trailhead that doesn't have an amenity and you have to pay to park, like because you have to go through a concession when you ask to get to the whatever road you're getting I started at kachis my first summer I was absolutely floored that we wouldn't let people walk in, because I lived in washington for like 20 some years and I'm like um the
Speaker 1:forest is free but there's also capacity limits when there's liability and different insurance okay hold on.
Speaker 2:So this is what I'm saying is that I didn't know these things right and so. But you said it's fucking crazy. Yeah, it is fucking crazy. So just walking into the forest and not using any amenities Should be free, should be free. But hey, everybody uses some sort of the amenities, provided, either it be the freaking trail that you walk down, or the parking spot that you have, or, um, the the garbage can that you use is going to get emptied. The bathroom that you use gets cleaned every day. Um, trash gets picked up all over the place because campers throw all their garbage everywhere.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, it's just like reduced transparency. Business operations are not subject to the same public disclosure agreements as government agencies. That's been one of my consistent annoyances.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not. We're having difficulty finding most of these contracts and I want to know everything.
Speaker 1:uh, unpopular and remote sites and by remote sites I mean like day use areas that have that little iron tube in an envelope where it's like, hey, can you pay to be here? But there's no one around and you've never seen someone working. That's a remote site or a campground with the same thing, like there's not a camp host there but they're like, hey, pay in this envelope with the honor system there is still somebody that works there. They just only go once a day or once a week, depending on where it is. So these unpopular, remote sites get way less operational attention. There's no or maintenance attention.
Speaker 2:There's just no. Yeah, they just fall into further disrepair, yeah and sometimes they're closed altogether.
Speaker 1:It's also lower wages, uh, for the people that are working on these lands, right? The private concessionaires pay less across the board really at minimum wage yeah, it's always minimum, almost always.
Speaker 1:Then you know, the government agencies who would be staffing the same positions would be paying a lot more and having benefits. But all of this to say, I would still rather and I'm happy to make minimum wage on the West Coast and work for one of these companies and get to experience this lifestyle in these places. Right, then work a job where I could get paid $30 an hour. But I wish the whole system could be different.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But I'm still willing to do it Right, because it's a privilege to live in these places.
Speaker 2:I mean, at some point something's got to give. Yeah, One of these companies have got to be doing something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want bigger change, but I'm probably still going to keep doing the job. Yeah, um, the contracts are really hard to revoke. These businesses can be ran poorly with no recourse, as the usual contracts are between five and ten years and they're nearly impossible to revoke. So unless you're that one at crater lake last summer, that was wild.
Speaker 1:Just mid-season a concessionaire got cut that is really crazy there isn't a very clear path for the government on how to proceed with an exit exit strategy if the concessionaire is failing. So it just kind of creates chaos, right, uh, and there's less local control.
Speaker 2:The local needs are just not prioritized yeah, and that's the local um community, like um the community partnership we were talking yeah, it's not happening yeah, like there's friends of lake cachis that are very adamant about like the stewardship of the lake and that it being a reservoir and it being drained and stuff, and you know it's these people that own these multimillion dollar homes along the lake, in the woods, but also they're also conservationists. Yeah, there's also ones that own the Forest Service cabins, that have the easements.
Speaker 1:They're actually not owned, they're on a hundred year lease, oh right, so there are cabins on Forest Service land that used to be on hundred year leases, and right now there's the last generation of people that can be grandfathered in. Oh, to take over.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, I didn't know that, and stay within the family.
Speaker 1:I know that from Reading, no from the Baker family. That happened at Cachise Because they're Eastman's. Bro grandson, that got grandfathered in.
Speaker 2:I think he's trying to sell that place, because I've seen it for sale a couple times Well.
Speaker 1:I got very, very like frat bro WVU vibes from him Like I'm from New Jersey Well you should have had him give it to you.
Speaker 2:I don't, anyway. So there's less local control. They like if local people had been staffing the campground because they that money they know would go be, all that money would go back into that campground specifically and the, the people that live there are part of the local community. Then are the ones that are in the campground working the campground are part of that local community, so all that money goes back in. It would just benefit greater, it doesn't? So all that money just goes to what, Colorado? Where's the headquarters for Exploress? Wait, I love Exploress.
Speaker 1:But we can talk about Camp One's headquarters, and that's in.
Speaker 2:Altadena no Avila, Avila Beach.
Speaker 1:No, it's san something. It's in california. Look up camp one guys. Look up camp one, lawsuit just google parks management company very they like to go back and forth between the two names, so it's harder to track them it's just and it's disenchanting after having a conversation with the ceo, because he seemed so cool.
Speaker 2:He seemed so cool and nah dude anyway. So uh, reduced government funding um is a con. Obviously. Reliance on private business for maintenance and infrastructure public funding Reliance on private business for maintenance and infrastructure.
Speaker 2:Public funding decreases, so they heavily rely on the fees that are collected and then, once they raise the fees, they get all excited because now it's millions of dollars that they're collecting and they just keep raising them and they'll just nickel and dime you at everything. So, although these private businesses are often only investing the bare minimum back into their leased land's infrastructure, all this is a very ethical debate, or unethical debate. Public land use for private gain goes against a lot of people's beliefs that public land should remain free from profit-driven interests. However, y'all leave trash behind, that's gotta get cleaned up. I don't know I'm I'm a fence sitter on that I?
Speaker 1:I'm of the belief that it shouldn't be profit, profit driven right.
Speaker 2:I think it should be like um a non-profit organization there are, so shouldn't be.
Speaker 1:This isn't goodwill there are so many programs that we could be funding, like, uh, bring back the ccc. How about have a gap year program where kids go out and they work on trails and then, after they do that, then they can't post for a few months and then they do all these things. There's so many things that could be funded and could be better, right, um, there's also higher fees yeah because nothing says public lands like being charged fifty dollars a night to sleep on dirt and inconsistent quality.
Speaker 1:Some concessionaires do a great job, others not so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's where they think, where they get their most revenue is where they're going to put their most money. And so, yeah, I don't know, I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you can probably figure out how we feel, but we'll let you think on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It pretty much lives in both of our minds rent free all the time. The catch to this is the regulation and consistency. Coming from a franchise management background, I'm infuriated at the inconsistencies across campground concessionaires. Let me put it this way you know, when you're traveling and the Starbucks where you stopped forgot to put the white mocha in your white mocha and you're like what the fuck? I order this every day at the one down the road with no problem and it's a different price.
Speaker 1:You expect brand standards, right? Well, in my mind, I want the Forest Service to have a better operations manager, the person who ensures brand standards are being upheld. I want the Zantara employees at Forest Service Campgrounds to have the same job description, uniform policies and fees as the Explorys employees at US Forest Service Campgrounds. It's weird to show up to places with the same sign and your experience can vary from an empty campground that hasn't had staff on site in three weeks to a chaotic campground with $45 in extra fees aside from your site, with a single host managing a workload large enough for five people and enforcing rules. It just seems to me like there's not enough oversight, which is continuously the theme of my work complaints. Not enough oversight, too much oversight by the wrong people. I want those brand standards upheld, but I also want to let everyone into the force for free and I also want to collect a 40-hour paycheck. So maybe form your own opinion on this one. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, seriously, all right, we'll be back after a quick break, if you're still here. Congratulations. We'll be back after a quick break If you're still here, congrats. You now know more about campground management than most people running these places.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Campos Confessions. We really want to hear from you. Ever lose your phone in the pit toilet? Ever get shushed by your camp post for being just a little too rowdy? Maybe you've had a run-in with wildlife, a campsite ghost or a neighbor who took glamping way too seriously? Whatever your story campground chaos, trail misadventures or any outdoor absurdity send it our way. We want to read them to you. Email us at camphostkelsey at gmailcom. This is one that I actually will read. I can read my emails I do good at that and you just might hear your story on the show. All right, love them or hate them. Concessionaires are just a part of the system. Now. They keep campgrounds open, but at a cost, literally.
Speaker 2:So the next time you're paying a ridiculous fee for a campsite, just remember it's either that or the government lets your favorite campground fall apart.
Speaker 1:And if you're thinking about becoming a camp host, just know you will have to explain to someone why their dog can't just roam free in a national park.
Speaker 2:If you're chomping at the bit to find your first campground job, now that you have a little more information, I'm going to give you some homework. First, you're going to join any work camp Facebook group. Go wild. I'm not going to list them off for you, but there's a million and if you just start reading, it will all make sense soon enough. Next up, I want you to begin researching your future employer. I'm not going to blackball myself from this whole community because I've already have, but start by reading the employee reviews. You should start with Camp One and then go to Zanterra, get on Glassdoor, linkedin and start storing that knowledge, because one day, when you stumble across the job post of your dreams in that Work Camp Facebook group, you'll already know if that's someone you're willing to work for.
Speaker 1:Oh smart. I could talk about this for hours, but I'm assuming we've probably talked your ass off enough for one or two days, whatever this ends up being.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So thanks for supporting us, thanks for being here and, please, the best thing you can do to support us is by telling a friend.
Speaker 2:Or also donating through our Buy Me Coffee, which is now like Buy Me a New Truck, all right, get a friend to give us a listen.
Speaker 1:And, on that note, shout out to our friend Billy Campos Confessions is the very first podcast he listened to all the way through and we were just tickled over that. How cool. So thank you, thank you, thank you. We hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Stay safe, stay respectful and stay wild, and make sure you subscribe Bye.
