OCONTO COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK)- This weekend brings campers for Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest Campgrounds. Some places just opened after being delayed by April snow.
On Friday morning, Boot Lake Campground was open for business.
“Usually we try to coincide our camping season with the start of the fishing opener. We try to open that Thursday before, just to accommodate the sportsmen,” said Greyling Brandt, U.S. Forest Service Assistant Ranger for Recreation and Lands.
But this year that was not the case as an April blizzard pushed the camping season back throughout the forest.
“We still had ice on the majority of our lakes. And we still had snow piles in front of our gates. We couldn’t open even if everything was high and dry,” said Brandt.
Crews cut trees and cleared sites of debris, so five of the eight campgrounds in the Lakewood-Laona district could open Friday.
All other campgrounds are set to open May 24th, including Boulder Lake. That site has been closed since January for a public safety concern that has since subsided.
Brandt says the reservations are coming in fast.
“I was looking at the reservation numbers this morning. And since we’ve reopened it on Tuesday, we have 318 reservations as of this morning.”
Oconto County operates two campgrounds in the area as well. North Bayshore Park and Chute Pond were scheduled to open the same weekend the blizzard hit.
“We had about three or four reservations at each park. We pushed them off to different weekends. You can change your dates in your reservation at no charge, if you just move to a different date,” said Monty Brink, Oconto County Forestry and Parks Administrator.
Using one of the roughly 45 campgrounds in the national forest, will cost more.
Fees are going up starting in two weeks, about three dollars per night on most campsites.
