Posts Tagged ‘yurts’

Yurts story in today’s Mercury News

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors will mull the matter tonight.

Yurts are only part of a five-year effort by the county to attract more campers. Officials recently started putting up Spanish-language posters on buses and light rail advertising “Camp Here,” after surveys showed Hispanics are a promising untapped camping market. But despite those and other efforts - like promoting county parks at various outdoor stores - attendance has still dipped. The sites are booked for only about 17,000 nights a year on average - or between 12 percent and 20 percent average annual capacity.

So, why don’t more people like to camp in the county parks?

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Posted in In the news | 3 Comments »

Yurts proposal for Santa Clara County parks

Thursday, February 7th, 2008
A product sample from the company Pacific Yurts. More on yurts here.

I hear tell the parks department in Santa Clara County wants to put up 24 yurts in five of the county’s parks. Here’s a link to the proposal. Estimated cost: $832,000 (a handy illustration of housing costs around here: A Mongolian-style tent on a raised platform will set you back 34 grand — the county could buy barely used second-hand camping trailers for much, much less, but hey, yurts are the in thing these days).

Current plan is to put them in parks that already have campgrounds — Sanborn Skyline, Uvas Canyon, Grant Ranch, Coyote Lake, Mount Madonna — but that issue isn’t settled. Heck, Grant Ranch is big enough that you could have yurt-to-yurt hikes, just like in Mongolia, but minus the horsemen.

A colleague at the paper is working on a story about the yurt plan and is interested in the opinions of hard-core campers who’ve used the county parks, and specifically whether they think much of the idea. Use the comments to weigh in, and perhaps you’ll see your name in the paper in the next few days.

With any luck I’ll remember to link to the story when it actually runs.

(Here’s a PDF of the Yurt Feasibility Study … tons o’ interesting facts in there)

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Posted in Park district events | 6 Comments »