RE: Umbagog campground, NH question

[PI]

 garym053
Stan had said that there were a couple of loon chicks that they found dead. At one point My DH and I were kayaking and a loon stayed pretty close to us so we were wondering if we were too close to a nest. It wasn t acting funny though and it was so close. The head looked velvety. I had never seen one that close before.
 When we went on the boat ride we saw 4 loons together. I didn t know they hung around more than 2 together. I love watching them. If you could email the info, that would be great. Thanks. We have a wedding this up and coming weekend so maybe next weekend we can get out somewhere. It is time.
 

[garym053]

 PI
It would be doubtful if it was nesting that late, maybe if it was a second or third attempt but even still late July is pretty late! I think on lakes that are as " boat-busy"  as Umbagog, they get used to boats and come closer than they do on other lakes. When we took the boat ride, we saw 10 in a group. Stan called it a Circle Dance trying to lure fish. The Loon biologist that I volunteer for said they were more likely eyeing each other up for territories, etc. although he didn t completely rule out the luring of fish!
 Personally, I think that the more Eagles and Ospreys that start nesting around the lake, the fewer loons will nest there. Too much risk to the chicks. AND there are a lot of other lakes in the area to choose!

[GeneF]

 PI
Wish I could share this experience with you but have only be fortunate to see it one time.
 
 We were kayaking on a local pond and came across 8 to 10 loons.  I think they were doing some sort of mating ritual.
 
 Lots of noise, flapping of wings and skimming across the water.  We watched them for about 30 minutes.
 
 I don t know if it is me or not, but I did not care for the rangers up there this year.
 
 On my first trip, when I had my bacon experience, none of them knew anything about first aid and only one of them made any effort to help or show concern.  He managed to find me some burn oitment that he had in his cabin.  After reading the directions, I decided not to use it.
 
 On this trip, I tried to inquire about the boat ride.  I had to be persistent in my questions to get any info.  Ranger would not tell me if and when the boat was going out.  She finally told me that she would let me know if it was going out.  Never heard a word.  I wasn t going but the couple we brought along wanted to make the trip.
 
 Also, the garbage was all over the place for about three days.  The dumpster was filled and people were piling it all over the area.
 
 Then they LOCKED the bathhouse for about 3 hours for cleaning.  I don t know if that was the real reason or not.  They said they were waiting for the floor to dry.
 
 Never had any problems like that in the many years that I have gone there.
 
 On the plus side, there was a very large family group there.  They had rented two of the cabins plus had a tent site.  They had a bunch of teenagers with them.
 
 We had a blast watching this group, about 20 to 25 people,  playing and talking.  They were having so much fun and none of it was disturbing to the rest of the campground.  They used the open area to play some type of lawn game where you had to roll a ball and get it closest to another ball or marker.
 
 Also met another family up there that we had met about 8 years ago at the campground.  We hadn t seen them in a couple of years although dd had been corresponding with their dd.  It was a nice reunion.
 
 Ho[efully the rangers next year will be a bit more friendly because we will definetely go back.

[PI]

 PI
We had a similar experience with the boat issue. The problem was that they didn t know if they would have enough people on Fri. night but Fri got cancelled. I guess it was us and 1 other person.Sat. evening it also depended on the weather and when Stan got back ...I guess they had a ranger boat pack that accidently got dropped off at one of the remote sites and it would take about an hour to get to and back. They did come to our site to let us know but we were always asking anyway ( iguess we were a little pushy in a nice way.) Just wanted to plan the evening. We did get to go on Sat.
 My DH ran into the Bathrooms being closed because of  cleaning a couple of times but we weren t paying attention to how long it took.....I love having a CP in the camper!
 I talked a lot with the rangers and found them very friendly. Maybe things just got hectic because of all the things going on there.
 Glad you had a good time in spite of everything.
 PI

[GeneF]

 PI

I talked a lot with the rangers and found them very friendly. Maybe things just got hectic because of all the things going on there

 Glad you had a good experience with them.
 
 I don t know, it just seemed to be an attitude problem with them this year.
 
 Last year they had a ranger that had a golden retriever from the Golden Retriever Rescue League.  Very helpful and a lot of fun.
 
 When we made our reservations, the invoice stated three nights, 4 adults.  We were charged for the three nights of camping on the invoice.
 
 When I made the reservation, I was told that my MC would be charged for the campsite and we would have to pay the extra for the other two adults when we got there.  I have done this before.
 
 DW went to pay the bill.  Ranger said we didn t owe anything because the invoice was marked paid and it said 4 adults.  He would not take payment even though dw tried to explain the billing to him. so dw didn t pay it.  So we camped for $63 and not $123.  I believe the extra adult charge is half the site fee for each extra adult.
 
 On my first trip there this year, we came in about 3 p.m. with the boat to take a short break from fishing.  We put the boat on the small beach to the right of the swimming area.  Many people leave canoes and kayaks there.  We hadn t even walked back to the site when two rangers were all over us about having to move the boat.  It took us a bit to convince them that we had done this in past years with no problems and were only going to be about an hour.  They finally said okay.
 We were the only campers there on that day so we were not getting in anyones way.  Yup, we had the whole place to ourselves.
 
 So anyways, I still love the place and have met some really nice rangers.  This is just the first year I have been so disappointed.

[garym053]

 PI
Hi! I love Stan and his dry sense of humor, but haven t formed much of a good or bad opinion of the others! We did notice the bathrooms being locked for quite some time, but there was a fan running trying to dry the floors and ther is a little bathroom in the back that you can use, so it didn t really bother us.
 We left our kayaks near that little section you talked about with no complaints. There were 5 of us on the boat ride so that wasn t a problem and they do have a small note posted in the office saying that the rides may be cancelled if too few sign up or because of weather.
 I did notice that they seemed to have an abundance of new people there this year, perhaps it s a learning year for them!!!