Geode Start Park campgrounds open once again

The Geode State Park campground is officially open for campers. The grounds, which had been closed in November of 2017 for renovations, reopened at noon on Sept. 23. Ulf Konig, Geode State Park manager, said renovation took longer than expected due to weather.

The park had hoped to open the grounds early to mid summer, around June or July, but due to a particularly wet spring, finishing touches for the renovations got pushed back to fall, Konig said. 'It was so muddy, we couldn't do anything for a bit or bring anything in … We've been getting a lot of calls from people asking about when it was opening and we kept on pushing it back but we're finally able to open it up and get people back in here,” he explained.

Despite weather constraints, the reovation project came at the perfect time. 'Since it would coincide with the lake being drained, it was good timing since not a lot of people would be at the park anyway,” Konig said.

The renovations to the camp grounds include the installation of new fire rings, removal of over 50 trees, redone picnic tables and the installation of full hookup sites, which will include electricity, water and sewage systems that campers can be directly connected to. The camp grounds also include new shower and bathroom amenities. Konig noted that the park also replanted trees, which will hopefully grow and restore the amount of trees in the park within the next ten years.

'We just took down whatever was becoming hazardous,” the manager said of the trees that were cut.

Much of the renovations was in service of updating the electricity grid on the grounds. Konig said the old electric hookups that were present at the grounds were installed in the 60s and 70s and would often stop working when overloaded when newer campers attempted to use them. With the renovations, all of the electricity hookups have been upgraded from 30 amps to 50 amps, which will be able to accommodate newer and larger campers that have air conditioning and other features that require more electricity.

As part of the renovations, the camping grounds has cut down from 168 sites to 90. The reduction comes as a result of upgraded amenities and an effort to make the grounds more spacious. Currently, only 48 of the 90 sites are open. The rest of the sites will be open later this fall, once more grass has filled the area, which will prevent campers and RVs from getting stuck on the grounds due to mud.

Konig anticipates all 48 sites will be full in the upcoming weeks, as long as the weather stays pleasant.

'There aren't a lot of campgrounds in the area, so we get very busy,” Konig said. He estimates 150,000 to 200,000 campers visit the park each year and will see the same amount of traffic since the grounds are now reopen.

The reopening of the park saw several excited locals waiting and ready to have the campgrounds open again. Several New London families were at the entrance before noon, waiting for the gates to open.

Brandon Fowler, a New London police officer who brought his nine-month-old twins Mason and Madison to the grounds for the opening, said he has been camping at Geode State Park since he was as young as his children. For Fowler, camping was a family tradition that he hopes to pass down to his own children.

'Before the renovations, we would come out 10 to 15 times each year. We're just ten minutes away so it's really convenient for us,” Fowler said.

Fowler said he was particularly excited about the new renovations and when he and his family learned about the new full hookups at the grounds, they decided to invest in a new camper so they could take advantage of the upgrades.

'We used to just have a pop-up camper but we bought this new one over the summer when we heard about the renovations,” Fowler noted.

'The campgrounds hardly had any full hookup sites before this, maybe only 12 to 16 ... and they redid the ground too. It used to have a bunch of potholes.”

Fowler said his family are excited to be able to get back to Geode Park and anticipate making several trips out to the grounds the upcoming summer. Fowler's current trip is just for one night to check out the renovations.

'It's just the entire experience, the outdoors and the peace and quiet, that make it great … hopefully my kids will want to continue camping when they grow older too. When my entire family camp, we usually have three or four campers with us. It's a whole group,” Fowler said.

For Todd Sines, also a New London police officer, the opening of the grounds was his first time at Geode State Park. Sines and his family moved to New London in 2015 and frequently go camping in their Grand Design camper.

'The past three weekends, we went camping every weekend … just being outdoors and being away from whatever is the best part,” Sines said.

'We've camped other places but we never had a chance to camp out here before it closed,” Sines added.

Sines found out about the reopening of the campgrounds through his friend, Drew Kuckler, a local park ranger. Although Sines had not seen the grounds before its renovation, he says he kept hearing about it from everyone around him, which was why he decided to check out the new grounds.

Linda and Harold Baker, a retired couple from West Burlington, are excited to have their old stamping grounds reopened. The Bakers, before the renovations, would camp at the grounds two weeks every month and began visiting Geode State Park when their children, who are now in their 40s, were young. The couple plan to be at the grounds through the end of the month.

'My favorite part is the pretty scenery,” Linda said.

Nowadays, the Bakers go camping with their 8-year-old rescue dog, Snowball, who enjoys meeting new people and hanging out in the couple's truck until after everything is set up.

'It's just a nice place to get away … we're really excited to have it open again and with all of the new hookups,” Linda concluded.