Phone Line to Reserve Campsites in State Parks Reopens Today

The state parks system will begin accepting reservations for campsites today, four weeks after the bankruptcy of a private company forced the sudden shutdown of the service.

State officials said vacationers will be able to reserve campsites as much as seven months in advance by calling a toll-free reservation hotline at (800) 444-PARK.

But they said tours of Hearst Castle and Ano Nuevo State Reserve will not be subject to reservations at this time. They will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis until further notice.

The park system, which relies on a private company to handle about 1 million reservation calls a year, shut down in December after its contractor, Destinet Service Corp. of San Diego, filed for bankruptcy and closed.

Although a new contractor, Park.Net, began work immediately to reopen the system, officials had not expected the service to be operational until March or April.

But Parks Department spokesman Ken Colombini said the company was able to move up the start date by routing calls through Park.Net’s call center in New York.

“It’s not the best way to do it, but it was a way to get it back up as quickly as possible,” he said.

A new call center in Sacramento won’t be ready until April, Colombini said.

In the meantime, he said, California parks officials have sent several staff members to the East Coast to help their New York counterparts handle the first few days of calls.