Golden Ears Provincial Park booked solid for long weekend camping

Don’t bother checking – all Golden Ears park campgrounds are fully booked for the upcoming Victoria Day long weekend.

And with the beautiful weather expected this weekend, Stu Burgess, operations manager for both Golden Ears and Rolley Lake Provincial Parks, is expecting the day use areas to fill up as well.

On Friday, Burgess has somewhere around 340 parties arriving at the popular park to start their camping trips.

“It will be one of our busiest days of the year because pretty much everybody is coming in,” he said, unlike during the summer months when more people stay throughout the week and into the weekends. This weekend, he said, is one big arrival.

On Monday he has about 407 checkouts.

Up until now the weather has not been as nice and that has been most evident in the amount of people accessing the day use areas of the park. Day use attendance is down compared to this time last year, said Burgess.

“We were seeing day use areas filling on weekends in April and early May last year, we’ve seen nothing like that this year. There’s people here but certainly not the numbers we experienced last year,” he explained.

Even the long Easter weekend was not as busy as expected. There were two campgrounds available for reservations that did not fully book and there were only a handful of people in another campground available for first come first serve, noted Burgess.

Currently there is no day use pass system being enforced at the park, but Burgess has been advised that is about to change. Although he doesn’t have the exact details, he expects the day use pass system to start again somewhere between mid to late June and continue to the Labour Day long weekend.

READ MORE: Day passes are being checked at Golden Ears Provincial Park: Operator

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There are also no campfire bans as yet.

“We are at low fire hazard and I expect it is going to be a while before the fire hazard increases. Everything is pretty wet from the past month and a half of nothing but rain,” said Burgess.

For this weekend, though, his staff have been mowing the roadside and grading the gravel roads, most of which they have completed. They are also getting campsites cleaned up.

Burgess is advising people going into the backcountry this weekend to make sure they are prepared and check the BC Adventure Smart website before heading out.

If people are heading to the day use areas, to expect a busy weekend.

“If the day use areas fill we may have to turn people away,” he said.