One U.S. Forest Service campground near Wynoochee Lake will see a change in management and another will close temporarily due to deferred maintenance, changes that outgoing camp hosts are accepting begrudgingly as they hope to ensure access at a historic site.

The Forest Service announced Dec. 15 the Satsop Center Campground, located just southeast of the lake, will close temporarily on Jan. 1, 2024 to “address safety concerns and maintenance needs, as well as explore future opportunities for administrative or public use.”

“To ensure the safety of visitors and the resource it’s important that we take this time to do the necessary work on the site,” Olympic National Forest Acting Supervisor Al Watson said in a press release.

The Coho Campground, which features 46 tent and trailer campsites as well as three yurts, will remain open under a new concessionaire.

In an interview, Watson said the timeline for the closure at Satsop is indefinite and will depend on further assessments of the systems and facilities of the campground. Forest Service personnel will need to address issues with the campground’s water system, the foundation of a burned bunk house and several other buildings in poor condition, Watson said.

“Those need to be analyzed and then either taken care of, because of their condition, or just removed,” he said.

The Satsop Center features seven RV sites, 17 tent sites and five group sites, along with several small buildings and a residence building.

The closure of Satsop will also end the Forest Service’s permitted agreement with Wilderness Adventures, a company run by Tal Dobbs, who operated the Satsop site, and his nephew, Shane Dobbs, who ran the Coho Campground. In 2022, the Forest Service opened a public application to groups interested in managing both campgrounds, but further inspections revealed safety risks at the Satsop site and led officials to schedule the closure. Through that process, the Forest Service chose a locally-owned business, D-5 Recreation, as the new operator of the Coho site exclusively.

After the agency notified Wilderness Adventures last year that its permit would expire for the Satsop site at the end of 2023, the group started an online petition titled “Save the Satsop Center” and advocated against the closure. Shane Dobbs declined to continue running the Coho camp if the Wilderness Adventures group could not continue with the Satsop site.

Tal Dobbs, 78, recently moved out of his residence at the Satsop Center after more than a decade of living there and about 20 years spending time there.

“I didn’t leave willingly,” Dobbs said. “I planned on drawing my last breath up there.”

He recalled visiting Satsop Center before it was a campground in the early 2000s to work on wildlife studies, and later hosting various youth groups and educational organizations. According to Dobbs, he spent his own time and money on improvements to the area, including removing an old ropes course, laying shingles, demolishing old buildings and laying down gravel for the RV sites.

Dobbs said they also assisted with search and rescue communications for the nearby forest.

“Our presence up there was a lot deeper involved than just running the campground. We took that place on like it was a part of our lives,” Dobbs said. “Everything we created there was for the public.”

In its near century-long history, the Satsop Center has been used as a work center, administrative site, and provided lodging for Forest Service employees and partners, according to the Forest Service.

After identifying timber sales in the area in 1927, the Forest Service cut the first rail line through the Wynoochee valley and built the Satsop Guard Station at the site where the Satsop Center is today. In 1941 they were joined by the Schafer Bros. Logging company, which established their Olympic Camp that operated until the late 1950s.

More than 200 people resided at the logging camp at one point, including the parents of Montesano resident Mitzi Shindele. As the leader of the Peninsula Access Coalition, a group that works with the forest service on public access issues, Shindele frequently used the Satsop Center Campground as a jumping off point for excursions into the woods and while working on road and trail maintenance projects.

Shindele said she reached out to forest service officials last year and advocated that the center not be left empty during the transition in management, expressing concerns about potential vandalism to unmanned buildings, a concern shared by Dobbs, and emphasizing the potential for a myriad of uses at the site. She also hoped the site’s rich history could be preserved.

“There’s a lot of public interest for it to continue as a campground,” said Watson of the Forest Service, who added that the agency plans to step up security at the Satsop Center during the closure with camera systems, gates with reinforced locks, and increased patrols.

Shindele said she was encouraged by the Forest Service’s most recent announcement that the closure would be temporary, although she said “the community, myself included, is going to sorely miss the Dobbs family managing those properties. At the same time, we have to look forward to the new folks.”

Reservations for the Coho Campground will open in mid-January under the management of a new, local company, D5 Recreation, a family business owned partially by Craig Dublanko, who also works as the CEO of the Coastal Community Action Program, a housing agency in Aberdeen. Dublanko said his family will run the recreation business, which has no relation to his role at CCAP.

“D5 Recreation is honored to be selected by the USFS to be the concessionaire for the Coho Campground,” said Heather Anderson, a board member and communications manager for the company. “D5 is locally owned and has a passion to see the Coho Campground continue to be an exceptional resource for the community.”

With future operations at the Satsop Center uncertain, Tal Dobbs, who has moved back to Eastern Washington, said he doesn’t have an interest regaining management there. But the Dobbs still have an interest in the future of the campground.

“Even if we’re not there, the Satsop center needs to be maintained in some way,” Shane Dobbs said.

Tal added, “Somebody needs to take interest in that to make sure that is around for the public for generations to come.”

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.