EDMONTON – With the Canada Day long weekend around the corner, Parks Canada has closed two campsites in Jasper National Park due to flooding near an access road.
Spill off from the hillsides has blocked Snaring Road, causing parks officials to close Snaring River Campground and Snaring Overflow Campground. That means about 350 sites will not be available to campers looking to celebrate Canada Day in the great outdoors.
Parks Canada usually opens about 2,050 camp sites on the long weekend.
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Jasper’s campgrounds are normally booked during what is traditionally the busiest time of the year, and Parks Canada expects all its sites will be full by Friday morning.
In the meantime, Parks Canada officials are urging people to make reservations at campgrounds east, south and west of Jasper, if they haven’t already. Many of those campgrounds, such as Robson Shadows Campground to the west and Gateway RV Park to the east, are from 70 kilometres to 180 kilometres from the park gates.
Since the campgrounds by Snaring River aren’t available for reservations and are usually first-come, first-serve, parks spokesman Chris Whitty cautioned campers against just arriving and hoping to find a site.
“People may plan to go there because they have in the past … (but) if people don’t have reservations, they can’t find a site by just driving up,” Whitty said. “We want to make sure that people aren’t frustrated.”
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