bobsallyh wrote:
We ran into a similar situation several years ago at Swan Lake, MT. FS CG. There was a 14 day limit and we always pay several days then renew since there is no refund. Well about the 3rd day there we were told that the next day it was going to be reserved and we would have go bye, byes. Not so fast my friend. There were 11 such sites and they were going to take them all. I left several of the affected people in some of those sites know what was going on. The guy across from me was semi-local and always paid the same way we do. He quickly went down and paid his days left into the Iron Ranger. He wanted to see what they were going to do about refunds. We decided to wait until the next day when they took our tag off and replaced it with a reserve tag. About noon the following day the host went around re-tagging 11 sites. After we ate lunch, we jumped in the truck and drove into the Big Fork, MT. Forest Service office. Two gals behind the counter in their best FS PR asked how we were doing. By the way everybody in that office was great! I said " we would be better if we weren't getting evicted from Swan Lake CG". With that statement they became all ears and sort of looked at one another. About that time a lady back in an office came out and said "what did I hear you say"? She asked if one of us would come back to her office, that she was going to call the concessionaire over in West Yellowstone, MT. My wife went back and talked to the concessionaire. It got a little loud and when the concessionaire said "this is the only FS CG that had first come, first serve sites" Wife immediately told here that approx. 5 miles from West Yellowstone was a total first come first serve CG that she just happen to concessionaire also . Then the back pedaling started. Concessionaire said there was nothing could be done about the situation and wife told her this wasn't the end. The gals in the office then told us there had been several other incidents regarding that concessionaire who we were familiar with. That outfit had just gotten the contract for the area FS CGs. So as we were driving back to Swan Lake just before cell service goes kaput the phone rings with a 406 area code. (MT.) I pulled off quickly, wife answered and imagine this, it was the concessionaire at West Yellowstone. "You may stay your entire time". So about an hour after we get back to Swan Lake, the host came by and pulled off all 11 tags. It wasn't the host's, it was the concessionaire trying to pull something. At the time, that outfit had CGs and trailheads from West Yellowstone to Bozeman and another bit out of Bozeman. The contract for the Swan Lake area and on up towards Eureka had come up because the previous guy retired and they got the winning bid. About a month later we were in Libby, MT. and the cell rings, again a 406 area code. It was the Billings FS. office that wanted to know what went down at Swan Lake, so the word got passed on somehow.
