Popular Kansas park camping fees expected to increase

The cost of some of the most popular state park camping fees could cost more next year. The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism commission will vote Thursday in Liberal on requests made by Linda Lanterman, state park director. It’s been several years since these fees have increased.

Under the proposal, annual camping permits purchased for April-September would increase from $200 to $250. Annual permits purchased other times of the year would increase from $150 to $200.

Fourteen-day camping permits, currently as low as $85 for off-season purchase, would sell for a flat-rate of $110. Overnight camping rates, as low as $6, would increase to a flat-rate of $9. In the past, Lanterman has estimated the increases could add as much as $700,000 to state park budgets.

The commission will also be asked to approve a permit to legalize the use of alternative vehicles, like golf carts and side-by-side utility vehicles, in state parks. Such vehicles would only be allowed on the state park roads between sunrise and sunset. They would also be required to follow the same regulations as regular vehicles and where they could legally be driven. If approved, the annual permits will sell for $50. Lanterman has estimated less than 1,000 would be sold annually.

Also at the meeting, commissioners will be asked to approve a regulation change that would make it legal, with special permit, for bass tournament anglers to keep up to five bass 15 inches or longer on lakes with more restrictive limits. The fish would have to be released immediately after the tournament weigh-in.

A proposed regulation will also be submitted that would require hunters using the Marion and Glen Elder wildlife areas to register with Wildlife and Park’s iSportsman system, which helps monitor hunting pressure and success rates. Popular public hunting areas like Cheyenne Bottoms and the McPherson Valley Wetlands have used iSportsman for several years.

iSportsman update — Last weekend’s opening of the low plains early zone duck season came at time with the iSportsman system was out of commission. Mike Nyhoff, Wildlife and Parks public lands supervisor, said the problem is within the national iSportsman system, meaning registering for hunting on many public areas, including military properties such as Fort Riley, across the nation has been difficult since Oct. 3.

Nyhoff said iSportsman officials told him the problem should be fixed by the middle of this week. In the meantime, Kansas hunters needing to access the system are asked to go to the agency’s website, www.ksoutdoors.com, and follow directions to an alternative registration system.