![HorseParkingOnlySignBITS[1]](wp-content/uploads/2014/08/HorseParkingOnlySignBITS1.jpg)
There is a growing concern that non-equine campers have discovered campgrounds or sites that are intended for use only by campers with equines. As a result, these campgrounds are filling with non-equine campers, leaving campers with equines with no place to stay.
It’s important that we collect information about specific events, so that we can truly assess the impact of this situation. If you’ve experienced this situation, please complete this survey.
If you have experienced more than one incident, please complete a new survey for each incident.
IMPORTANT: Complete this survey only if you were witness to the incident. Do not complete this survey for incidents you heard about second hand.
Linda Brim
Thanks for putting this up Jenny! If OET members are being asked to help maintain horse camps, corrals, and trails with no guarantee there will be “room at the inn”; there will be little incentive to keep doing so. While I have not been refused a site because a camp was full of car campers, I have shared Northrup Creek with a non-horse group that simply enjoyed the size of the horse camp compared to what they found in the car camp. A reservation method seems to be a logical solution.
sandy tetz
I am very interested in being involved in this issue with non-horse campers in horse camps. I am OET member in Columbia County. 🙂
Jenny Hill, VP Marketing
That’s great, Sandy! We have someone who is putting together a group who would like to become more involved in this issue. I’ll pass your name along.
April Helton
Northrup creek last weekend in July non horse campers in best horse spots.
Michael Wagner
July 2013 a young family pulled into Silver Falls State Park Horse Site D with a horse trailer full of bicycles. Presumably they had reserved a site and paid a fee. I informed the Park Ranger of what was happening and she did not do anything except talk to them. I checked with the reservation service. Their policy that they tell users is “No horse, no site”. I asked about their horses and they said they were sick. (Sure!).
Kelly Andersson
In 2006 I camped with a group of riders (friends I’d ridden with before) at a horse-campground near the border between Montana and Idaho. Two campgrounds at that location, one for horses, one not. I was on a road trip, with no horse, but met up with the 30-or-so people who had finished a long cross-country ride at that site. On the suggestion of one of the ride leaders, I borrowed a horse from one of the riders and babysat him overnight at my little campsite. (Cheating? I don’t know, maybe, but I’d helped the group with marketing and editing and photography over the years, and their horse-overnight area was pretty crowded — and I did help put on the grilled steak dinner that night.) The park/campground supervisors were ALL OVER monitoring the campsites, and they (politely) tossed a few hiker/mountainbike people from the horse site and got them to move over to the other campground. It was quite well handled by everyone involved.
I was, several years later, a BCH member in Montana, and our group had built, developed, and maintained a horse campground on one side of a lovely mountain lake – USFS land. The lake boaters discovered the horse camp and took to filling it up with their non-horse campers and boat trailers and loud party people, seriously diminishing the “quality of life” for horse overnighters. Took several years to resolve, including a lot of patience and hard work with the BCH members and USFS managers.
George Fitzpatrick
In many places, the horse camp is the only camping site available for miles. They are not my first choice, because of the flies and poop, but I need a flat place to put my tent. I like to hike in the wilderness and I don’t own a horse. This only leaves the horse camp as a place to access the trailhead.
Rick Smith
George,
In Oregon, just 3% of the public campground campsites are available to equestrians. Horses aren’t allowed in any of the remaining 97% of public campsites. How many dispersed camp sites did you pass on your way to the horse camp? With a single vehicle and a tent there is massive number of such sites in most National Forests.
You show up in with a single small vehicle and a tent to occupy an equestrian campsite. Many equestrians travel long distances with one or even 2 truck and trailer rigs to camp and ride with their horses. I am sorry, but when we drive 200 miles only to find you in a horse campsite because there isn’t a “people only” campground within say 10 miles or so, you should understand how we might feel about your selfish act. Finally, how many miles of trail did you help clear last year? And at how many campgrounds and trail heads did you volunteer to help with maintenance?