By The Salem Statesman Journal
The number of people visiting Oregon’s outdoors plateaued just below record numbers in 2022 during another year of packed campgrounds and busy trailheads across the state.
Oregon’s state park system recorded 52.2 million day visits and 2.97 million camper nights last year, the second-highest in the agency’s 100-year history.
The numbers were down slightly from the record-setting 53.6 million day visits and 3 million camper nights in 2021.
Oregon’s vast federal lands, largely managed by the U.S. Forest Service, also saw significant crowds but peak summer numbers also appeared down slightly compared to the pandemic-fueled years of 2021 and 2020, according to observations from recreation rangers across the state.
Winter and off-season recreation continued to rise in popularity, especially at sno-parks around Mount Hood, in Central Oregon and Santiam Pass.
“What we’ve seen is year-round use increases in numbers as well as additional ‘new’ activities in all seasons,” said Jean Nelson-Dean, spokeswoman for Deschutes National Forest.
One outlier was Crater Lake National Park, which recorded its fewest visits in a decade last year.
Oregon’s only national park recorded 527,259 visits in 2022, according to National Park Service data, down 19 percent from 2021 and 30 percent from 2016, when it recorded a record 756,344 people.
Staffing was another issue last summer.
It has been difficult to hire new rangers, officials said. And finding campsite hosts has become increasingly difficult, leading to some campgrounds in central Oregon dropping campsite reservations and moving to first come, first served.
Because of the shortfall — and the extended busy season — Oregon State Parks is asking in its 2023-25 budget proposal to extend the amount of time seasonal staff can work.
“The system evolved around a two- to four-month peak season, and it’s much longer now, closer to four to six months,” said agency spokesman Chris Havel. “Most of our field staff are only with us for a few months, leaving the core staff to handle the rest of the year. When they run out of time and the season isn’t over, the core staff get run ragged and can’t get the usual ‘off-season’ maintenance done.
“We’re asking to spend more money out of our (budget) to bump existing ranger time up. Longer-term, we need a conversation about whether the current funding mix can keep up with the pace.”
One of the more surprising developments was that visits to the Oregon coast ticked down in 2022, following years when heat and wildfire smoke in the mountains and valley led to often overcrowded beaches.
Day visits to the coast dropped by 5 percent to 29.8 million visits in 2022, down from 31.4 million in 2021.
This year, high gas prices seemed to keep more Oregonians closer to the state’s larger cities. Camping was up 8 percent and day visits up 4 percent at Willamette Valley state parks compared to a year ago.
State parks in the “mountain region” — which includes parks in southern and eastern Oregon — saw an 11.9 percent decrease in overnight camping.