We just spent the last 4 months camp hosting.  I’m going to try to describe the process, our experience and my suggestions (for someone considering camp hosting). Technically we were Park Host Volunteers.  In return for various duties(min 24 hours per week), we received a full hookup RV site for free.  This was our first and only experience so far.  Our tour was at a Texas State Park, so filter accordingly.

Where?  We were at Caprock Canyons State Park.  Caprock is a 15,000+ acre park, situated outside Quitaque, TX.  Now if you are reading that, you might be thinking quit-a-que or quit-auq, but the correct pronunciation is kitty-quay.  Its posted right on the welcome signs to the city.  Caprock is 50 miles east of and halfway between Lubbuck and Amarillo.  In other words, the middle of nowhere.  

Weather winter – Texas Panhandle. 

 

 

 

Some days, it seemed, our weather came up from Mexico and others it came down out of the Rockies.  Highs in the mid 70’s or more one day, then lows that night well below freezing happened every week.  We got as low as 9 degrees F, so keeping the water lines and bays warm was an issue as was being able to use the air conditioners and the warm sunny days.  Winds too – were forecast at times to gust up to 60 mph, though our weather station only reported just under 50.  My rain gauge, for the entire four months – 0.04 inches – and most of that was snow!  Dry, dry, blowing dust and more dry.  But on good days, hiking in the canyons was great.  But it wasn’t summer – and summer, we hear, is VERY HOT!

Animals?  Cayotes, mountain lion, road runners, bison, deer, bobcats, bison, racoons, bison, rattlesnakes, and much more. Bison?  Yes, they say there around 300 Bison there, and it is THEIR park.  It is the home of the Texas State Bison herd. 

 They go pretty much anywhere they want, including sometimes walking through our site or settling in for an afternoon nap around our fire ring.  Speaking of Bison, sometimes our duties included monitoring and turning off campsite water faucets because the bison would turn them on to get their fill of water for the day!

 

 

 

Caprock Canyons is comprised mostly of some pretty rugged area just east of the high plains.  That makes for some photogenic scenery and, depending on which trails you might choose, some brutal up and down hikes, all the while trying (but failing) to avoid all the cactus and thorns.  There is also a campground set up for horse camping, one for water electric hookups, three for tents, and two backcountry camps that have to be hiked into.

Duties

Back to camp hosting.  Duties included cleaning facilities (bathrooms), picking up trash, emptying fire pits, light maintenance, site checks (marking down which sites are occupied each morning), monitoring for rule violations and being helpful in general to campers.  The latter involved answering questions, giving directions, reminding people to get their permits,  describing trail hikes and occasionally loaning out an extension cord to a tent camper trying to stay warm.

As for campers, we found most of them to be respectful of the park and their neighbors.  Some made a point of picking up trash – to leave the area cleaner than they found it.  They followed all the rules, left on time, etc.  As with any population, there were a few of the other types.  About once a week, we’d walk through all the campsites that were empty (Sunday afternoon or Monday morning) to pick up trash.  Most common object picked up?  Bottle tops.  Evenly split between water bottles and beer bottles.  That was closely followed by paper towels, napkins, plastic food wrappers, shopping bags, candy wrappers and cigarette butts.  In a tour of all the sites, we’d come pretty close to filling a large trash bag every time.  It’s just nuts that a site would have half a dozen bottle tops as well as that many cigarette butts left on the ground.

Prior to camp hosting, we had followed pretty much an open schedule.  Most of which was clocked by the needs of two small older dogs.  A trip out first thing in the morning, another after our coffee (their breakfast, another mid day, one after their late afternoon meal and another at bedtime.  Around that, we’d plan hikes, watch some TV or go on drives and work on the RV.

As camp hosts, most of that still needed to happen, but so did site checks first thing in the morning, bathroom checks and cleaning, twice a day plus whatever other tasks had been assigned.  It doesn’t sound like all that much of a difference, but after four months, we were ready to get back to our old “schedule”.  But then we also found ourselves “bored” sitting in a new camp site one day after we left.  Going on dog walks and NOT picking up trash became the new weird.  I did pick up trash in our next site but paying for a site and cleaning up the campground for free – seemed too much (sorry Thousand Trails).  

Our daughter, son-in-law and their 4 little girls also were camp hosting during the same time. 

So many off-hours were spent with the girls as well.  They helped with some chores such as picking up trash, going hiking with us, cooking weenies around the campfire and looking at the stars through a telescope.  While the skies were dark there, it was often too cold to stay out long, and for whatever reason, the “seeing” was often poor. Seeing in astronomy terms is the amount of upper air turbulence that messes with taking pictures.

If you’ve never camp hosted, well you’ve likely had a new job over the years or joined a different church.  When you sign up to work as a part of a new-to-you organization there is a learning curve on both sides.  They get to learn what you will and won’t do and how well you can/will do them.  You get to try to fit into their way of doing things.  Hopefully.  Your new park has carefully honed its practices over the years.  They may not make sense to you and your fresh look.  Hopefully, your new bosses will at least listen to your input if not accept some of it.  But you won’t always understand the WHY of some things.  As a camp host volunteer, some things you just need to go along and do your job as best you can.  And we did.  Our park accommodated some changes in the schedule we needed as well as a few changes in procedure.  

Since we were at a State Park, and having worked at a state university (Illinois) for 30 years, I was well aware of the kinds of limitations and downright obtuseness of state funding and oversight.  That translates to “there were some things they could fix and some things they couldn’t.  If you work for a private park, I’d expect similar constraints of logic, just different ones from working for a state park.  It all comes down to that adage: learn what you can change (little), what you can’t (lots), and discern the difference (go with the flow).  

Having said all that, I expect we will camp host again sometime.  Probably not four months straight in one place unless there is a very good reason for us to do so.

Mike and Debbie