Changes in store for visitors to Texas state parks
Pedernales Falls State Park and Enchanted Rock State Natural Area have little in common with urban and suburban shopping malls or big-box stores. Or so it might seem.
But on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, those two stunningly beautiful, natural and wild pieces of Texas’ state park system shared a characteristic with the manmade monuments to consumerism. Both were overwhelmed by a human wave.
A bit after noon, Enchanted Rock SNA reached its capacity to absorb people, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department staff there announced via Facebook that the 1,600acre park near Fredericksburg would close that day to additional visitors. At Pedernales Falls SP, staff had to temporarily close some parking lots after they were filled to capacity, dribbling new entrants from the line of vehicles outside the park entrance when exiting visitors created space.
Such temporary closures, triggered by parks reaching their capacity to hold visitors, are becoming commonplace at several of the most popular of the 90-plus sites in the state park system. Even more common is state parks having all available campsites filled on weekends and not just holiday weekends. Overall visitation to Texas’ state parks steadily has swelled over the last decade, climbing four to 10 percent a year, even as many state parks or portions of them saw short-term and long-term closures because of damage from fires, floods and hurricanes.
The upshot is that simply showing up at a state park and expecting to find an open campsite or getting a day-use permit can be a chancy proposition, and one that can lead to frustration and disappointment.
Planning ahead has become crucial, especially when considering an overnight or day trip to a state park on a holiday weekend, spring break or just about any weekend from Memorial Day through Labor Day, the peak parkuse season. Enhancements coming
Such planning should get a little easier this coming year as TPWD expands its online reservation system, implementing features that will, for the first time, allow visitors to purchase day-use permits in advance and reserve specific campsites, cabins and screened shelters.
The new features in the state-park reservation system will allow purchase of what TPWD is calling “Save The Day” entry permits. A daily permit, which can be purchased as much as a month in advance of a planned visit on a specific day, will assure a visitor of park access on that day — no showing up and being told the park’s full.
The new system also will allow online purchase of a Texas State Park Pass. The $70 annual pass allows all persons in a vehicle with the annual pass to enter the park without paying the per-person entry fee and is valid for an unlimited number of visits over its 12-month life. (These are great values for anglers who regularly launch their boats at ramps located in a state park.) Selection process easier
The enhancements of the state-park reservation systems also will allow overnight visitors to reserve specific campsites, screened shelters, cabins and lodge rooms. Under the current reservation system, visitors can reserve a campsite, shelter, cabin or room but have to pick their site from what is available when they get to the park.
Some campsites are better than others, with better views, more privacy, closer to restrooms and showers, or having other characteristic that make them desirable to campers. The new “Pick Your Site” online option will allow visitors to search for parks for types of sites, see details of site’s amenities (utilities, size of tent or trailer pad) and include a photo of the site.
The new features to the state-park reservation system will be accessible online and on mobile devices. TPWD has not announced a date t hat the new features will be available, but agency officials said they are planning to launch the enhancements early in 2019.
That timing may coincide with resumed opportunities to visit some state parks that have seen closures caused by damage from flooding and Hurricane Harvey. Two state parks — Lake Whitney and Caddo Lake — are entirely closed at this time. But more than two dozen state parks currently have partial or temporary closures in effect. They include Hurricane Harvey-damaged parks such as Mustang Island State Park, where overnight camping has been suspended; Goose Island State Park, where waterfront campsites are closed and probably will remain so for months; and Village Creek State Park, where much of the park, including access to the park’s namesake waterway, is off limits to visitors. In many state parks, trails, some campsites and even access to boat ramps or other facilities are closed as the state’s park agency continues to address what has been a significant damage to many parks.
Updates on parks’ status, including which areas are closed and, in many cases, expected dates of reopening, are available on the “state park alert map” on the park system’s website — tpwd.texas.gov/ state-parks.
The state parks’ website also has an icon that allow park users to sign up for email notification of the enhanced state park reservation system’s launch.
That enhanced reservation system and the repairing and reopening of flood- and hurricanedamaged parks are not the only changes Texans are likely to see in their statepark system in the coming year. They could see eight current units of the state park system, including the iconic Battleship Texas and San Jacinto Monument and Battleground, change hands.
Earlier this year, Texas’ Sunset Advisory Commission, an arm of the Texas Legislature that reviews state agencies ahead of legislatively mandated decisions on that agency’s future, approved recommendation that eight historic sites in the state-park system but not attached to a state park be transferred from TPWD to the Texas Historical Commission.
The recommendation came as part of the “sunset review” of the Texas Historical Commission — a legislatively mandated review that each state agency undergoes at least once every 12 years. The review is aimed at determining whether the agency should continue to exist or be abolished, and includes recommendations on how to improve the agency and streamline government.
The eight State Historic Sites named in the Sunset Commission review of Texas Historical Commission include Battleship Texas, San Jacinto Monument and Battleground, Fanthorp Inn near Anderson, Fort Leaton near Presidio, Lipantitlan near Orange Grove, Monument Hill/Kreische Brewery near La Grange, Port Isabel Lighthouse and Washington-on-the-Brazos near Navasota. All of the sites are day-use-only, and most are only a few acres in size with only a couple offering limited picnicking areas.
The Sunset Commission’s recommendation to transfer the eight sites is the latest move to convey responsibility and operation of strictly historical sites from TPWD to the Texas Historical Commission. In 2007, the Texas Legislature passed a bill mandating TPWD transfer 18 historic sites to the Texas Historic Commission.
The Sunset Commission’s recommendation on the transfer of the eight sites probably will be decided during the coming 86th session of the Texas Legislature, which begins Jan. 8, 2019. Language mandating the transfer is likely to be included in legislation reauthorizing the Texas Historic Commission.