I drove past Heaton Bay last weekend and they were still logging it. It didn't appear as though many trees were left, but the logging equipment tore up the grounds around the area pretty good. I'd guess they could get it fixed up by June or July, but you should call the FS.
There was a article in the Summit Daily newspaper about two weeks ago, this is the local paper in Summit County, about the campgrounds around Dillon Resevoir.
Heaton Bay Campground will be open this year. The work in the campground itself is done. The current logging is east of the campground along the areas closer to the lake. The primary area closed currently is the bike path from where it passes over the dam and then past the campground going towards Frisco.
They are working on the Peak One Campground on the Frisco Pensula. They said they hope to have it open some time this summer. But they said the same thing about Heaton Bay last year and it never opened.
The Loury Campground and Prospector Campground which are on Swan Mountain Road on the south side of the resevoir are probably closed for the season. The trees along the upper parts of Swan Mountain Road, where the campgrounds are located, are 80% to 90% dead. If you are familar with the area, they have started cutting trees near the parking lot for Saphire Point.
They have already cut many trees on the Frisco Pensula. The best way to describe these areas is they are now a clear cut. There are significant areas of dead trees on the both sides of I-70 going east from the Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnels. Probably the new dead areas will reach Silver Plume and even Georgetown by the end of this year's warm weather. Actually you can see dead trees on the east side of I-70 between Georgetown and Empire. Those are left from one of the previous problems back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Most of the US Forest Service campgrounds (at least the major ones) in the country are now being managed by various private companies under the administartion's privatization program. In USFS region 2 (CO and WY0 the cgs are managed by Thousand Trails management company - a branch of TT.
USFS budgets have been so severely cut in recent years that they do not have personnel to take care of the campgrounds. One person in each office now 'supervises' the contractor. Personaly I think this is a proverbial catch-22 disaster. The contractor makes a good profit - money that should go back to the local FS district office that seems to get less and less budget every year.
MODERATOR - this could lead to a political discussion that should not be allowed to contatnue.
I just wanted to clarify the question about TT.
John
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