By JAMIE HALE/The Oregonian/OregonLive
A whopping 53.8 million people made day trips to Oregon’s state parks in 2024, according to data released Friday by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, but rather than celebrate the news, park officials are sounding the alarm.
That rise in popularity — a 3 percent increase over 2023’s numbers, and a mere 0.4 percent increase over the previous record, set in 2021 — comes at a cost, officials said.
“It isn’t sustainable financially,” state parks director Lisa Sumption said. “We need help.”
More visitors have meant more wear and tear on park buildings and infrastructure, which increases the cost of managing the entire park system, the agency said Friday. To illustrate that point, a news release announcing the record numbers pointed to a few examples:
- One busy park needs nearly a semi-truck load of toilet paper per year.
- More than a third of restroom facilities are 50 years old or older. The cost to replace one? More than $1 million.
- The costs of operating and maintaining state parks have outpaced revenue by 30 percent.
Sumption said the department currently faces a $350 million maintenance backlog, with infrastructure aging and visitors requiring more and newer amenities.
The state parks department does not receive public funding, relying instead on revenue from the Oregon Lottery, RV license fees, and money from campsite reservations and parking passes.
With costs and visitor counts increasing alike, park officials decided to raise parking and camping fees across the board, increases that went into effect Jan. 1. But those alone will not be enough to fill the funding gap, Sumption warned.
“Continuing to raise fees is not the answer,” she said. “The funding we have is great, and we’re grateful for it, but it is not enough to sustain.”
Sumption said the state parks department will be facing a “budget crisis” in 2027 unless something changes. The parks department has already been working with state lawmakers, she said, but there are no clear-cut solutions so far.
In the meantime, Oregon’s state parks are only getting busier.
The big increase in visitors last year was driven entirely by a surge of people to the Oregon coast, the only region in the state that saw an increase over 2023, the data shows. Coastal parks saw an 8 percent increase in visitors last year, while parks in the Willamette Valley and eastern Oregon saw decreases of 3 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
Facing the sheer force of the Pacific Ocean, those parks sometimes pose more complex challenges for park managers. Earlier this year, Cape Lookout State Park had to scrap a long-planned campground renovation due to “unexpected geological and safety concerns,” the department said.
Three coastal parks saw a greater than 100 percent increases in visitors in 2024 — Hug Point in Cannon Beach, William M. Tugman south of Reedsport, and Driftwood Beach in Seal Rock, which saw a 233 percent increase over the previous year because it had been closed for construction of the PacWave project.
In addition to the record number of day-use visitors, the state parks department tallied 2.83 nillion overnight visits. That’s actually the lowest annual number since 2017 (not counting 2020, when state parks shut down for months).
Camping numbers were down across the state, including at the coast, which accounted for 62 percent of all camper nights in Oregon.
Without adequate funding, the much-heralded Oregon state park experience could become a thing of the past, officials warned. If campgrounds lose water and restrooms don’t get replaced, it could become a grim time for the park system, Sumption said.
“At some point people won’t come because the experience won’t be as good,” she said.
- Jamie Hale covers travel and the outdoors for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at jhale@oregonian.com
Until the 1980s, Oregon State Parks had not charged fees for Oregon residents because we had already supported the parks financially. Nonresidents paid a cost comparable to what federal and private parks and campgrounds charge. Let’s keep the state’s Transient Lodging Tax but amend the statute so that part of the tax that reverts to the state to “promote tourism” is spent on maintenance of the public tourist attractions — state parks and campgrounds.
If this means Travel Oregon must cut back on promotion activities like out-of-state advertising and slick publications, so be it. Are state legislators reviewing the transient lodging tax statutes? It would be a straightforward fix unless the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association opposes it. Travel Oregon, the agency funded in part by the lodging tax, gives ORLA members a lot of free advertising.
Monica, your ideas deserve serious consideration by state legislators.
Good idea.