Winter campground hosts say it’s a labor of love

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

Russell and Paula Hagfors get a free place to park their trailer, electricity, sewer and garbage service. In the winter they live in a gated community with a wonderful view of the Pacific Ocean just outside their living room.

All they have to do is dodge King tides, hunker down during 60 mph winds and spend four hours a day cleaning up a campground – all while living within the 290 square feet of their fifth-wheel trailer.

The Hagfors are spending much of the winter as the lone occupants of Beachside State Park north of Yachats.

They are full-time campground hosts, moving between coastal parks in the winter and spring and Stub Stewart State Park in Washington County in the summer and fall.

It’s one thing to be a host during the bright, dry months of summer. But holding down the fort during the winter – whether at Beachside, Tillicum Campground, Cape Perpetua or Heceta Head — requires a different kind of person.

“You have to love camping and this lifestyle,” said Paula Hagfors. “We love this park and we love this time of the season.”

The Hagfors used to live in a golf community in Hillsboro. But two years ago they retired — Paula, 62, after 25 years with Fred Meyer; Russell, 68, after 46 years with Safeway and Nike.

“The day we retired we moved into the trailer,” he said.

But they had scouted the nomadic lifestyle.

They spent the previous three summers working as campground hosts at Stub Stewart, commuting from there to work in Hillsboro and Beaverton. Paula Hagfors worked graveyard and Russell heading out as Paula was driving home – and split camp host duties.

“We found out that even though we never had a day off in the summer that we loved it,” Paula Hagfors said.

And so their life on the road – and in the campground – began.

Becoming a host

Oregon State Parks started its campground host program in the 1990s when it needed to control staff costs but also found a growing number of people willing to help manage campgrounds and work 4-6 hours a day in exchange for a place to park their trailer or RV.

The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have similar programs.

Hosting depends on the agency and the site. Some campgrounds, like South Beach State Park near Newport, are open year-round and have 320 campsites that can hold 1,800 people. It has 17 host sites, 12 open in the winter.

Beachside has 76 camping spots and two host sites, but only one in use during the winter after the gate is shut from Nov. 1 to March 15.

Tillicum, owned by the Forest Service, has two host sites managed by a contractor. The Cape Perpetua Visitor Center, also run by the Forest Service, has two hosts — one to help with center volunteers and the other to help with parking lot maintenance and restroom cleaning.

Along the central coast, Oregon State Parks also has year-round hosts at the Beaver Creek interpretative center, Carl Washburne State Park and Heceta Head.

“It’s a different type of person who wants to host in the winter,” said Paul Reilly, regional program manager for state parks based in Seal Rock.

People wanting to be Oregon state parks campground hosts go through an application and screening process similar to someone seeking work. If approved, they take an online safety class and sign an agreement outlining duties and responsibilities. They are put on a statewide list that regional volunteer coordinators peruse and can also begin contacting individual parks seeking openings.

“We try to be as flexible as possible,” Reilly said. “We have hosts who prefer isolation and want small, out of the way campgrounds and there are hosts who prefer the hustle and bustle of the big parks.”

Word quickly gets around about who are good and not-so-good hosts. Hosts also use a Facebook page to keep track of each other and share tips.

“You can fail at being a park host,” said Russell Hagfors.

People new to hosting will often try it for a month, said Dylan Anderson, who oversees state parks from Yaquina Head to the Lane County line.

Anderson says he seeks people who have sound judgment, can keep themselves busy and get along with others – including other hosts.

“Sometimes we also have to be the camp counselor,” he admits.

Who hosts?

The size and type of park usually dictates host duties. At South Beach, for example, some hosts do nothing but manage the yurts, or sell firewood, clean sites or staff the check-in booth.

For smaller campgrounds like Beachside, the Hagfors do a bit of everything. In the winter it’s mostly methodically cleaning sites after storms and making themselves visible to help deter vandalism even when the park is closed. Once guests arrive in the spring they split duties with a second host, greeting campers, selling firewood, cleaning the two yurts or sprucing up campsites.

“We like the outside work,” Paula Hagfors said. “You have to be able to work independently and without guidance.”

Changing demographics – and the change in the economy resulting from the 2008-10 recession – has also meant a change in the number and type of hosts.

“It’s very competitive,” Anderson says of people wanting to become hosts.

For the Hagfors, who had long careers, pensions from good jobs and now Social Security, it’s a matter of loving the lifestyle.

Anderson estimates that 60 percent of hosts are like the Hagfors — full-time hosts or travelers, half of those moving between northern and southern states depending on the season. The other 40 percent are doing it to help make ends meet.

Among those, Anderson said, are younger hosts traveling and homeschooling their children or hosts who also work remotely from their trailer or RV.

“Some people have a desire to get out and give back just like other community volunteers,” Anderson said. “And others are looking for cheap housing. It’s a way for them to make ends meet in a safe environment.”

 The hosting lifestyle

The biggest requirement of a campground host, the Hagfors believe, is liking people.

“We have direct contact with every single person here,” Paula Hagfors said. “You have to absolutely love talking to people.”

That has included instructing one family how to make s’mores, for example, or getting to know a European family in a rented CruiseAmerica RV.

Or, sometimes Paula Hagfors uses what she calls her “gentle conversation” with the 1 percent of people who run afoul of park rules.

“If they choose not to listen, then we go get the ranger,” she said.

Anderson says the Hagfors have one of the more coveted jobs in the state park system. Beachside is popular with hosts because of its small size and – as the name implies – it’s proximity to the ocean. The Hagfors like to point out one large, sheltered campsite overlooking the ocean that, based on reservations, is the most popular site in all of Oregon.

“You work to earn this site,” Russell Hagfors said as he sat in a recliner inside his trailer. “You can’t beat sitting here and looking out over the ocean.”

Russell Hagfors says he likes to plan their hosting schedule 12-18 months out. They will stay at Beachside through February, go to South Beach in March then return to Stub Stewart for three months.

They do try to take a break for a month or two from hosting, this summer hoping to explore the Washington coast or San Juan Islands. If they need a break from their trailer they visit one daughter in Hillsboro, another in Ireland, or go on a cruise.

It’s a lifestyle they plan to continue for at least five more years.

“We’re still young as far as campground hosts go,” said Russell Hagfors. “We’ve just started our hosting career.”