During the height of camping season, Oregon State Park officials hope that a new campsite reservation policy will help more people reserve the sites they want.

The change, which goes into effect Aug. 1, will require people making reservations for campsites and other park facilities to pay for the full stay when they reserve the site.

Currently, people can pay for the first day of their stay, plus a $6 reservation fee, and pay the rest when they arrive at the park. But this has led to some campers reserving sites for more days than they actually stay. The new policy aims to help discourage this overbooking, which leaves empty reserved campsites that otherwise would be full on summer weekends.

The new requirement doesn’t affect existing reservations unless campers want to make a change.

Joe Wanamaker, park manager for La Pine State Park, said the change should help make overbooking less of a problem.

“People are going to more lock into what they want because they’ll have to pay ahead of time,” he said.

Some campers at Tumalo State Park on Wednesday evening thought the change in the reservation policy sounded like a good idea.

“If it would avoid a situation where there’s an empty campsite sitting there reserved, then I think it’s a good idea,” said Derek Rusaw, 28, of Bend.

Libby Cozza, 48, and Kerry Davis, 50, campers from Portland, both thought the new policy made sense. Cozza didn’t like that some people were abusing the system.

“I think that’s unfair,” she said. “It’s not a lot of money to begin with.”

Davis agreed. “It’s too bad that a few people ruin it.”

Campers said sites sit empty because it’s hard to cancel a reservation. Rusaw’s friend couldn’t cancel a reservation she made after she realized there would be enough room for everyone at just one site, Rusaw said. As a result, the campsite next to them was sitting empty.

Cozza mentioned a friend who reserved a campsite and then realized it was at the wrong campground. She tried to cancel and couldn’t, so she just reserved the correct site and paid for both.

“It was easier to get two spots,” Cozza said.

Bennett Scott, 61, of Washington, didn’t like the way the new policy practically obligated campers to stay the whole time they reserved a site.

“It would limit your flexibility,” he said.

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department decided to change the reservation policy because it wanted the system to be fair, said Marilyn Borgelt, reservations manager for the department.

“We had a lot of complaints about (the current reservation system),” she said.

She said that the problem of overbooking in parks is also an issue in other states. “Everyone is trying what they can to get rid of this problem,” she said.

In Oregon, officials try to keep track of what nearby states are doing. When implementing a similar policy in Washington helped with the overbooking issue, the department took notice. Borgelt said Oregon is one of the last state park systems in the country that doesn’t require payment in full when making a reservation.

The new policy also discourages people from changing reservations multiple times by charging a fee to change the date of a reservation. Those who have a reservation for more than five days and want to change it will be charged the fee for one day’s stay plus a $6 transaction fee.

Steve Memminger, park manger for Prineville Reservoir State Park, said that change, plus the pay-in-full requirement, will save campground staff time, since they won’t have to deal with so many changed reservations.

“We’re just trying to get people to stick to the dates they’re setting,” he said.

The change also means that state park department staff won’t have to spend time collecting fees at the campgrounds anymore, Borgelt said.

That will be one of the biggest benefits of new policy, Memminger said. Sometimes, when people get to the campground, he said, they don’t pay for the rest of their stay.

“This will eliminate having to chase them down for the full fee,” he said.

If you go

To reserve a campsite at an Oregon state park:

Go to www.oregonstateparks .org for a list of parks with campgrounds. Click on the state park where you’d like to camp and then on the “reserve online” icon. Or call Reservations Northwest at 800-452-5687.