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Deer Creek State Park • Drive by this scenic, reservoir-based state park in Wasatch County any day of the year and you will likely see someone recreating.

In January, it might be a small group of ice fishermen braving the chill for a chance to catch rainbow trout. In July, there are thousands of boaters and swimmers.

One of the most difficult challenges managing an urban playground in northern Utah is dealing with a booming number of people crashing the gates for half the year and then preparing for them during the other six months.

Legislative-mandated budget and staff cuts to Utah State Parks may make striking a balance even more difficult and could increase the workload of already busy rangers, seasonal employees and volunteers.

"Crazy is the best word to describe July around here," said Deer Creek State Park manager Rick Redmond.

Deer Creek Reservoir, set at the top of Provo Canyon with U.S. 189 running along its south and east shores, drew 110,765 visitors in July 2010. More than 359,000 visited Deer Creek last year. In a monthly comparison, there were only 2,786 people at the state park in December 2010.

Redmond says the only limit on visitation is the number of parking stalls for boat trailers, and the park just added 58 more. Things can get chaotic quickly when boating and weather are combined. Such was the case two summers ago, when Deer Creek was holding a sailboat regatta during the Utah Summer Games.

"We got hit by a nasty storm with microburst winds of 70 mph for 45 minutes," Redmond said. "We had 17 boats upside down, but we got everybody out."

Deer Creek State Park is staffed with four full-time rangers (two with law-enforcement certification), not nearly enough hands to serve the hordes of boaters, campers, anglers and picnickers each day of the summer. So the state hires 12 seasonal employees to handle fee-collecting, cleanup and landscape maintenance. Not all seasonal employees work full time, and many of them return each summer for years of service. Seasonal staffers allow rangers to take shifts patrolling the reservoir and being available when distress calls come in.

Similar visitation and staffing scenarios occur at Jordanelle, Rockport, Willard Bay, East Canyon and Utah Lake state parks.

Things are a little different in southern Utah. For instance, Sand Hollow Reservoir and Quail Hollow state parks in Washington County also get a surge in visitation in the summer months, but they pull a higher average number of visitors throughout the year due to more tolerable boating temperatures.

Seasonal employees there get a different kind of distress call from visitors.

"We have 64 toilets and 18 urinals, and it's the first thing we look at every morning and again right after lunch," said Bobby Buell, a four-year seasonal employee at Jordanelle State Park. "Sometimes we get a call that we need to go back again."

Buell, a 60-year-old retiree from Tooele, loves his job and says he feels he speaks for other state parks seasonal employees by saying he loves it when people thank him for his hard work and then work to preserve it. But there is another side to the job.

"The public doesn't treat the facilities as well as they should. We have to repair everything they break," he said. "If they kick down a door in the bathroom, we have to fix it. If a shower head is broken, we have to replace it. People must not understand that they own what they are breaking."

Jordanelle has 14 seasonal employees and more than a dozen unpaid volunteers to keep the park between Park City and Heber City clean and maintained.

Downstream on the Provo River from Jordanelle and Deer Creek, managers at Utah Lake State Park in Provo find there is no such thing as the offseason.

"About the time the water skiers slow down, we start seeing waterfowl hunters and then ice fishing gets going," said Utah Lake State Park manager Ty Hunter. "Each summer we compile long lists of things we need to do during the winter, so there is a lot of twisting wrenches and hammering nails. Each fall we think we are going to have so much time, but it never turns out to be enough."

Then there are the duties state park rangers have outside of their parks each winter. Utah State Parks is responsible for snowmobile and off-highway vehicle trails across the state. Rangers from Rockport, Jordanelle and Deer Creek state parks, among others, are assigned to groom snowmobile trails each winter. Utah Lake rangers are assigned with patrolling OHV trails in the desert west of the lake all the way to the Nevada border.

"A lot of people think we get this great break starting after Labor Day," said Laurie Backus, manager of Jordanelle State Park. "But it really doesn't happen that way. We have lease slip contracts and permits to work out, in addition to all the other things we need to do to keep the park and snowmobile trails and parking areas in shape. This is not just a summer job."

By the numbers

Two of the top five visited Utah State Parks in 2010 are large reservoir-based destinations.

No. 1 • Wasatch Mountain State Park (golf), 359,871

No. 2 • Deer Creek State Park (water recreation), 359,365

No. 3 • Willard Bay State Park (water recreation), 340,645

No. 4 • Snow Canyon State Park (hiking), 321,752

No. 5 • Antelope Island State Park (wildlife/hiking/biking), 285,390

Source: Utah State Parks —

Tribune series: The issues facing Utah's state parks

July 3 • Utah's 43 state parks are reeling from budget cuts, which have slashed general funding from $12.2 million to $6.8 million in recent years.

July 3 • Rock Cliff Nature Center at Jordanelle State Park closed July 1 as a result of budget cuts. Additionally, 23 full-time state parks positions were eliminated.

July 11 • Edge of the Cedars Museum, the largest federal depository for artifacts in the Four Corners, is holding on, despite being listed second on the Legislature audit's list of facilities under consideration for closure.

July 12 • Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park and Museum has gone from what was essentially a rest­room stop into a money-generating venture.

July 17 • The Legislature recommended eliminating law enforcement positions in Utah State Parks. Rural law enforcement agencies fear the changes could leave them shorthanded in times of need. Agency officials worry about public safety in the parks due to the reductions. Also, an update on ranger Brody Young, who was shot nine times during a patrol in 2010.

July 19 • Utah owns five golf courses managed by state parks. One, Wasatch Mountain, makes money, but the rest lose money — and Green River is in danger of closing.

O See the stories on the Web.

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