ST. GEORGE — It’s not every day that a fishing pole is used to cut a ribbon celebrating the opening of a new state park campground, but that was the case at Quail Creek last week.

State and local officials gathered Sept. 29 at Quail Creek State Park for the opening of the park’s new southern campground. Among those attending were Utah State Parks Director Jeff Rasmussen and Utah Reps. Colin Jack and Walt Brooks.

“I think state parks has done a remarkable thing,” Brooks told St. George News. “I think they’ve been listening to what people want and need.”

The new campground adds 25 new campsites that are outfitted with water and power. Each campsite is larger than those in the park’s original campground in order to better accommodate visitors with larger motor homes and trailers.

“Our older campground is designed for smaller rigs,” park manager Candace Smith said. “Now that we are seeing motor homes pulling boats and other trailers, our new campground accommodates situations like that.”

The campground also includes a modernized restroom facility with showers, a dishwashing station and a dump station (also known as a sanitation station) for motor homes and campers which is a new addition to the park overall.

“The whole campground in general is a huge improvement for state parks as well as Quail Creek,” Smith said.

Quail Creek State Park also hosts a race course for remote control cars, which was added last winter and indirectly played a part in the ribbon-cutting event.

The remote control course, or RC course, turned out to “be a hit,” Smith said, adding there’s a community of remote control enthusiasts in Southern Utah who are underserved in relation to available outdoor courses.

“We felt it would be a great opportunity to get people to come to the park in the off-season and enjoy doing their hobby,” she said.

While no date has been set for it yet, Smith said there are plans to add remote control rentals for park visitors potentially within the next year.

As part of the ribbon-cutting event, a remote control car was used by a park camp host to trigger a “chain reaction” that moved through various elements, which represented aspects of recreation enjoyed at the park and resulted in the fishing pole dropping on the ribbon.

Devan Chavez, a spokesman for Utah State Parks, described the chain reaction ribbon cutting in an email to St. George News.

Quail Creek State Park’s new RC racetrack has been a huge hit this year, so it only made sense for us to start with that. The RC car went up a ramp and hit a mountain bike, this caused a Camper/RV to race down the track and strike a boat. The boat then went across the “water” and hit the bottom of a fishing pole. The fishing pole then fell, cutting the ribbon in half and landing a fish from the fishing line onto a plate next to a picnic basket (which was placed on top of kayak).

A video of the ribbon cutting was shared by state park officials on Quail Creek State Park’s Facebook page.

Renovations and improvements to facilities at Quail Creek State Park began in 2019 with the relocation of the park’s main entrance closer to the southern boat ramp and future camping area. Plans for the new campground were in the works back then as well.

Like many other projects at the time, work on the new campground was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying supply chain shortages.

While not as popular as nearby Sand Hollow State Park, which was Utah’s most visited state park between July 2022 and June 2023, with over 1.3 million visitors, according to Utah State Parks visitation data, Quail Creek drew 335,000 people.

Snow Canyon and Gunlock, Washington County’s other state parks, saw 950,500 and 255,000 visitors respectively for the same period.

“Visitation across Utah’s 46 state parks continues to increase,” state officials said in a press release. “To help meet this demand, Utah State Parks, the Utah State Legislature, and local communities have been working together to expand and improve state parks. State park improvement projects — like this new campground — help to energize the local economies.”

While the new campground is open, Smith said the park isn’t taking reservations just yet due to park staff needing time to work out some of the “quirks.” Once that is accomplished, people will be able to make online reservations for the new campsites.

Photo Gallery

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.