It is Labor Day weekend and the campground at Elk Creek was pretty full. It wasn't bad at our loop, but we decided to move to another campground in the Curecanti NRA. We stopped in the Elk Creek Visitor Center and found out that the Park Service runs a boat tour up the Black Canyon of the Gunnison within the Morrow Point Reservoir, which is in a drowned part of the canyon. The Lake Fork campground is only a mile from the trail leading down to the boat landing, so we decided to move there.
When we arrived at Lake Fork, we were very surprised to see that the campground was basically a parking lot high above the lake, something we had only seen once before, at Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. Lake Fork is primarily a marina with a boat ramp into the Blue Mesa Reservoir, the largest body of water in Colorado, formed by damming the Gunnison River before it enters Black Canyon. The campground wasn't very crowded (it is, after all, a parking lot) and we found a site at the very end of the lot, overlooking the lake and the dam. It had nothing but the hillside on two sides, so it was as private as it could get in this campground, probably the nicest site in the place.
We went over to the entry station, which had a machine that issued camping permits and got our permit for the night. On the way back to the site, we stopped to check out the showers, which were right next to the campground host site. The host was there. I asked him if the correct procedure was to clip the permit to the post at the site to take it, as we were heading into Gunnison to do laundry and some shopping. He assured me that I was correct. We drove back to the site, attached the permit to the post, along with a big "Campsite Occupied" sign we had picked up at Yellowstone last year. We then headed into the town of Gunnison.
After spending most of the afternoon in town washing clothes, buying groceries and strolling the main street, we returned to Lake Fork. As we pulled in, we were surprised to find two pickup trucks and a motorcycle parked in "our" site along with several tents set up behind it. Our sign was no longer there. We told the people there that we had already taken that site. Their reply was that they had arrived and seen no permit, only the "Campsite Occupied" sign and had asked the campground host about it. The campground host had come down, seen that only the sign was there and took it away and gave them the site. Somehow our permit, which was clipped to the post with the sign, had "disappeared". Did I mention that the motorcycle was a Harley and the many site occupants were bedecked in Harley-branded do-rags and tee shirts?
We went off to see the campground hosts to complain. We told them that we had arrived in the morning, reminded them that we had talked to them about the procedure, but there was nothing they were willing to do as there was no permit there when they looked. They said we should have left something large on the site, like "chaining" our bikes to the picnic table. I'm not sure what difference that would have made, as our permit still would have disappeared. They then said that we should have told them which site we were taking so they could enter it on there log at the time. This is the first time we've ever been told that. They also indicated that the people there had had a reservation for that site, but had cancelled it and then changed their minds.
Let's face it, the permit didn't fly out of the spring clip, leaving the sign behind. I'm sure the camp hosts knew exactly what happened. Either the people arriving wanted that site and no one was around, so they pulled the permit off the post or they arrived, complained that they had had a reservation and the hosts gave them the site, since we weren't there and had nothing set up. But, no one was willing to admit anything.
There wasn't any way we could prove we had had the site, since the permit machine did not ask for a site number to print on the permit. This is one of the few times we have seen a machine, usually self registration is done be filling of a form on a payment envelope, on which you write the site number and your details an both the envelope and and a ticket. You put envelope with your payment in a fee slot in a locked box and the ticket on your site post. If that had been the case here, it would have been as simple as finding a ranger to open the fee box and see that we had registered for the site and were there first.
They gave us a handwritten permit to replace the one we "lost" and we took another, much inferior site in the parking lot, but it really soured us on Curecanti NRA. We had originally thought that we'd stay through the weekend and take a couple of hikes in the hills surrounding the lake, but we decided we'd move on after our boat tour.
This is our sixth trip visiting National Parks and the first time anything like this has happened. I hope it is an isolated incident but we've learned a couple of lessons. First, avoid campgrounds that are parking lots. Both times we've stayed in such places, Padre Island and here, it has not been a pleasant experience. Second, if you are leaving the campsite after just arriving, chain something big to the site and find the campground hosts and make sure they know that you have taken that site.
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