North Coast's state parks remain in limbo

<p>Lingering snow, late rains and a fog of uncertainty over the state budget are putting a damper on escaping to the great outdoors in Sonoma County and beyond this year.</p><p>Campgrounds and other facilities at three coastal state parks and five other inland parks are open this weekend, the traditional start of California's summer recreational season.</p><p>But the menu of state park closures imposed last year by a $14.2 million budget cut will continue for at least part of this summer. Parks managers in Sonoma County hope to open all facilities by July 1, but can't be certain if they will have sufficient funding.</p><p>“I don't have a crystal ball,” said Steve Bachman, acting superintendent of the Diablo Vista District, which includes five parks in Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Sonoma. </p><p>At Fort Ross State Historic Park, the fort compound and visitor center will only be open Friday through Sunday after this weekend. Reef Campground is closed.</p><p>Also closed are the day-use areas at a handful of coastal sites — Bodega Head, Campbell Cove, South Salmon Creek, South Goat Rock and Blind Beach, Russian Gulch and Vista Point.</p><p>In addition, there will be summertime restrictions on days open at Sonoma and Petaluma Adobe state parks.</p><p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last summer threatened to close 100 parks, gave hikers, boaters, campers and parks officials good news two weeks ago in a budget revision that restored full funding to the parks.</p><p>But there are several catches.</p><p>The $14.2 million park budget cut, which Schwarzenegger accepted as a compromise last year, applies to the current fiscal year, which runs through June 30.</p><p>The new budget year starts July 1, but there's no guarantee that the 2010-11 budget will be in place by that date, nor any certainty that full funding for parks will emerge from negotiations between the legislators and the governor, who must close a $19 billion deficit.</p><p>Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa and nearby Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, the latter including a campground, will be open this weekend and on into summer.</p><p>Most of the 98 campsites at the popular Bodega Dunes Campground near Bodega Bay will be open this weekend through Monday, but on Tuesday one loop will close for at least part of the summer.</p><p>“We would like to have everything open,” state parks spokesman Roy Stearns said. But, “we have to play the cards we're dealt.”</p><p>Park staffing has not been reduced, but job vacancies were frozen, he said.</p><p>Two decades of budget cutting have piled up $1.3 billion worth of deferred maintenance in the state parks, Stearns said.</p><p>California's 278 state parks — stretching from giant redwood groves on the far North Coast to the vast inland desert down south — attract 75million visitors a year, more than three times as many as Disneyland.</p><p>The $14.2 million budget cut prompted “service reductions,” primarily partial closures, at 150 parks, officials said.</p><p>Liz Burko, superintendent of the Russian River District, which includes three coastal parks and six day-use areas, said she's aiming to “open everything up by July 1.”</p><p>Sites that have been closed for months, like the Willow Creek and Pomo Canyon campgrounds near Bridgehaven at the mouth of the </p><p>Russian River, will require considerable work — mowing grass, clearing brush and more — before they can open, she said.</p><p>Mother Nature nature also has conspired to dampen the start of the camping season.</p><p>Sierra snow, which piled higher last week, has forced closure of three state parks with popular campgrounds around Lake Tahoe — Emerald Bay, D.L. Bliss and Sugarpine Point.</p><p>Advance reservations for state park campsites are holding steady, compared with recent years, said Jake Gonzales of ReserveAmerica.com, the website that handles online reservations.</p><p>California's state beach campsites continue to be “a hot commodity” nationwide, he said.</p><p>Sonoma County's prolonged rainy season, meanwhile, may be dampening the public's desire to get outdoors.</p><p>Sales of camping gear are a bit sluggish, said Jay Knick of Sonoma Outfitters in Santa Rosa. “We're seeing a lot of lookers,” but not buyers, he said.</p><p>“We need some 85 degree weather to get people going,” Knick said.</p><p>Business at the REI store in Santa Rosa has “picked up” in the last two months, assistant manager Marco Arredondo said.</p><p>Family-sized tents, camp furniture and cooking gear, as well as park maps, are selling well enough to convince him that the “family road trip” is back in fashion, Arredondo said.</p><p>REI has also sold 30 more Sonoma County parks passes than it had at this time last year, he said.</p><p>The soggy spring, however, has been a blessing to the parks themselves.</p><p>The waterfall at Sugarloaf Ridge should running strong as late as July, Bachman said. </p><p>Wildflowers are popping out now, he said, among lush, green grasses. “It makes for a spectacular season,” he said.</p><p>Farther afield, some blooms remain and triple-digit temperatures have not hit at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego County, the state's largest state park at 600,000 acres, Stearns said.</p><p>California reservoirs are gorging on rainfall, with Folsom Lake and giant Lake Shasta nearly full and Lake Oroville at 70 percent, a dramatic turnabout after three drought years.</p><p>Oroville's restored water level will make the lake's Loafer Creek Campground a fine family vacation spot this summer, Stearns said.</p><p>For those seeking to beat the crowds or to find a vacant campsite on busy summer weekends, Stearns suggests trying the northern end of California, including parks among the giant coastal redwoods.</p><p>“You will have the time of your life among the tall trees,” he said. “And the economy up there could probably use a few bucks.”</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.</p>