Crews clean up damage at state parks ahead of summer camping season

CHAMPION, Mich. (WLUC) - Widespread storm damage remains in some Upper Michigan state parks, just as they’re preparing for a busy spring and summer season.

Van Riper State Park in western Marquette County and Beaufort Lake State Forest Campground in eastern Baraga County both sustained damage after last week’s wet, heavy snow caused many trees to collapse and block roads and trails.

“Basically it looked like a tornado went through. The amount of white pine branches and trees that toppled, branches came down, everything like that, it ended up blocking access into a lot of areas. Craig Lake had trees down across the entire roadway into the park there are crews up there cutting their way in now, but we still haven’t made it and we’ve been going in for days,” said Ryan Brown, Van Riper/Craig Lake State Park Lead Ranger.

Rangers at Van Riper chose to focus on getting the modern campground up and running and pushed the opening date back for the rustic campgrounds.

“We decided that we were going to put all efforts into getting the modern campground ready our initial opening date was May 15, which is what we will still have for the modern campground, but our rustic campground we did close until May 22. That was in an effort to make sure that we could properly get the modern campground taken care of instead of half taking care of both of them,” Brown said.

Crews at the campgrounds have been working very hard to prepare things for the summer season. They’ve even had to borrow heavy equipment from other state parks.

“A huge, huge shout out goes to our crew. Right now we’re hiring our seasonal staff so a lot of them are literally starting this week and last week so they’re immediately getting thrown right into the fire. They all deserve a huge shout out, the Escanaba field office and Baraga field office also deserve a huge shout out they sent some crews out to help us and some heavy equipment,” Brown added.

The Michigan DNR says it appreciates your patience as staff works to get everything ready for the summer.

“We understand people want to get out. We just ask for continued patience, believe me, we’re out here working as hard as we can to make sure that everybody can get out here and have a good safe time,” Brown said.

The DNR says the Craig Lake backcountry sites, cabins, and yurts will be open on May 19.

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