Here's how the National Park Service responded.

[sacrawf]

Our reps and senators have bigger fish to fry, plus they're on vacation right now (lol)!

I agree that the reply from the National Park Service makes absolutely no sense, and was poorly stated.

The legislative aides and interns that would address this concern for your local legislator would be able to address this concern at most any time.  

We have to be careful what we ask for, however.  
Many public campsites, state, local, and federal, cannot accomodate a motorhomes or trailers of a certain size due to the roads or other width/height constraints. A counter argument for allowing soft-sided campers in the specific site could be made that the governmental agencies discriminate against a class of RV owners by not making all locations accessable for Class A's and large fifth wheels.  Do we really want all campsites changed to be accomodate all types of recreational vehicles to avoid descrimination between different classes of camping vehicles?  Do we want all campsites homogonized to a standardized accessability even if the expense means closing some existing campsites?

I see this argument about access to public park lands also on discussion groups of other outdoor activities.  Some, (not all, certainly) mountain bikers want all hiking trails opened up for their sport.  The same applies to some ATV riders, 4-wheel off roaders, horse campers, rock climbers, fishermen, paint-ball combatants, geocachers, base jumpers, and hunters. Enviromental purists want to extinguish all human activity and presence from any of these natural areas.  

By trying to balance the recreational goals of all of these competing interests, the environmental whackos, commercial mineral and logging companies, personnel management, water and flood control, park infrastructure maintaince, security and law enforcement, marijuana farms on park properties, poaching, search and rescue, etc., with a limited buget, the Park service has to make a lot of unpopular decisions.  The rationale for those decisions should be defensible to the public. The decision to make the campsite available for hard-side campers might make perfect sense to us if properly explained.  The response CajunCamper got explains nothing and is unaccecptable.

[AustinBoston]

By trying to balance the recreational goals of all of these competing interests, the environmental whackos, commercial mineral and logging companies,

Just a detail - There is no commerical mineral or logging activities in the National Parks.  Those activites exist within the National Forests, but National Forests are managed by the Forest Service, not the National Park Service.

Otherwise, some valid points.  I don't agree with them all, but it's something to keep in mind.

Austin

[GeneF]

I was under the impression that Fishing Bridge was for hardsided stuff because of bears.  This cg is supposed to be in a high bear population area.  

The cg we stayed at was a lot more in the wilderness and imo, a lot more liking to bears than Fishing Bridge.

Actually, with their generators, higher capacity water and holding tanks, the class a's may be better suited for dry camping.

If I remember right, and I may not be remembering correctly, that cg was the closest one to the park's showers.

[ForestCreature]

"Dear Kell,
  Your trailer is considered an RV, but Fishing Bridge is hard sided only, so since you have a pop up that is not completely hard sided and thus you cannot stay at Fishing Bridge. There are probably better reasons why soft sided trailers are not allowed at Fishing Bridge, but unfortunately I am not aware of what they are. Sorry, but you'll have to camp somewhere beside the RV park."  

Do I get this right? I can camp there in my "Hard sided" Aliner Pop Up, but a hard sided with canvas ends such as a hybrid cannot. Hmmmmm... bet my A would look real cute dwarfed among the big RVs .

 It all sounds pretty exclusionary to me, is this a vendor run CG ?

[flyfisherman]

I have to say that is really well below the quality of response I would have expected from the National Park Service.  That response is almost as bad as the policy itself.

Austin

Doesn't surprise me one bit ... since the federal governement has led the way to "out sourcing" ... ALL the quality, competent, conscientious, common sense prone employees have been replaced, and polices are now being administered by a bunch of politically connected pseudo-intellectuals.

What was that old naval acronym ~ S.O.P. ~ "standard operating procedure".

[mountainrev]

As a side-note to this discussion, we just got back from a week-long trip to Grand Teton National Park.  We stayed most of the time at Colter Bay.  We were camping with a couple who has a 5-er.  We camped in a traditional n.p. campground (i.e., smallish sites suitable only for tents, popups, or small tt's or htt's, with no hookups, etc.), while our friends stayed in an adjacent campground designated for R.V's that had full hookups (literally a stone's throw away from the tent/popup campground).  

But the interesting thing is, even though it's a national park, and barely 20 miles south of Yellowstone, the R.V. park apparently did not have any restrictions concerning tents or popups.  I saw at least two popups among the Class C's and 5'ers.

I'm not sure which concessionaire runs the Colter Bay R.V. park, but I would assume it's not Xanterra.  But the precedent is there at an near-by n.p. for non-hardsided campers to use an R.V. campground.  Why should they be inconsistent on this one?  

Just to throw my $.02 worth in, while I realize that this is probably more about the principal of the matter than the practicalities of camping, I wouldn't want to camp in the R.V. part, hookups or not.  I don't know what Fishing Bridge is like, but the Colter Bay R.V. sites were not nearly as nice as the popup/tent sites.  They are basically stacked one on top of another.  Plus, they cost over $40/night compared to $15 (I think) for the popup/tent sites.  

Yes, they have electricity and water for you.  But there are pay showers right there, and if your battery threatens to die on you, there are outlets in the restrooms.  I took my battery charger along, just in case (but ended up charging it at our friends' site).  But again, it's probably more the principal of the matter that's in question.  And I fully agree that the policy at Fishing Bridge stinks.

[aw738]

I just emailed Xanterra asking about the exclusion to see if I get the same answer. I also emailed my representative to see if I get a response from her. Just curious if I do here from her. I like stirring up the pot.

[CC777]

I'm with a previous poster...I think it is an outdated policy.  There seems to be a preconceived impression of what a pop up is and unless you've seen the newer units...you'd never guess what one may contain.  We had gentleman stop us at a filling station somewhere on the back roads of SC to remark that he's never seen such a big pup and what is it like inside?  We have a Hemlock.

I'm willing to bet that the folks who work at the parks with these policies really just assume that a pup would have no reason to use those facilitites.  Obviously it's not because of the bear because if it were ...they would have said so right off.  But don't be surprised if all of a sudden that is the main excuse.

This should be interesting.

CC

[AustinBoston]

I just emailed Xanterra asking about the exclusion to see if I get the same answer. I also emailed my representative to see if I get a response from her. Just curious if I do here from her. I like stirring up the pot.

Bump.  

aw, did you ever get a response from Xanterra?

Austin

[aw738]

I didn't get any response form Xanterra. I did get a call from my senator but I was at work when her office called so I didn't really get a response from her either.

[CajunCamper]

After reading a few guide books on Yellowstone, I have come to believe that the reason tents and pop ups are not allowed is because according to the guide books the Fishing Bridge area is noted as an important habitat for Grizzly Bears. I feel this is a legitimate reason for the policy, the problem is, the people that interact and answer the publics questions have no idea why the policy is in place. I'm all for public safety, but I wish the park service would make sure that everyone representing them is well informed on policies.

CajunCamper

[ptbrauch]

But does anyone believe that a hard sided camper would stop a grizzly from getting in if he wanted?

[sewserious]

But does anyone believe that a hard sided camper would stop a grizzly from getting in if he wanted?

I don't believe it, not after seeing what they can do to a car!

[AustinBoston]

I think the real issue is mass confusion.

There was a document (study/report/project/etc.) that recommended permanently closing all facilites at Fishing Bridge, which included a campground, an RV park, an automotive repair facility, and a visitor's center.  The report was based on bear activity, and the report wanted everything closed.

Because the people of Cody, Wyoming thought that would reduce the number of people using the east entrance (and therefore not passing through or spending money in Cody), only one part of the reccomendation was followed.

The Fishing Bridge Campground was closed (note: NOT the Fishing Bridge RV park), and nothing else.  So it is technically correct that the campground was closed because of the bears, but it was not because of bear-human encounters, or because tents/soft-sided trailers posed an unusual risk; it was just easier to close from a political point of view, to try to compromise between those who wanted no humans anywhere near the bears and those who wanted all the money they could get.

So someone will talk about the "Fishing Bridge Campground" and get different answers...it may be the answer about why the campground (which is closed) doesn't allow tents (it always did when it was open, but now it doesn't allow anything...because of the bears), or it may be why the RV Park (which is open) doesn't allow tents.  Since they always allowed tents and tent trailers in the campground, (which was right near the RV Park) it used to be easy to just shift them from the RV park to the campground.  Once in that habit, it did not change when the campground closed.

IMHO, either nobody in the NPS has figured out how to fix this, or their advice has fallen on the deaf ears of higher-ups who are sick of listening to and trying to sort out political problems with Fishing Bridge.

Austin

[AustinBoston]

But does anyone believe that a hard sided camper would stop a grizzly from getting in if he wanted?

Only if the steel was at least 1/2 inch thick, and the door was latched with heavy-duty deadbolts and held on with high-security hinges...and the only windows were bulletproof or smaller than 10"x10"

Austin