‘Camp Fresno is a hidden gem.’ Dyer pledges to fix up Sierra site for families, youths
The sad, recent history of Camp Fresno has taken an encouraging turn.
At the urging of Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, efforts are underway to reopen the city’s revered but neglected summer camp along Dinkey Creek in the Sierra Nevada by June — with an expanded purpose.
In addition to the families and community groups that have utilized the mountain getaway for decades, Dyer intends to make Camp Fresno available to organizations that work with the city’s underserved youths.
“I believe Camp Fresno is a hidden gem and something we have not perhaps taken as much advantage of as we possibly could for our youth,” Dyer said this week over Zoom. “Kids that don’t have the opportunity to leave the city of Fresno or even their own neighborhoods.”
Camp Fresno was closed last summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Current California health guidelines allow for “overnight sleepaway camps” to operate with modifications effective June 1, two weeks before Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to fully reopen the state’s economy.
With that in mind, Dyer told me the city’s Parks, After School, Recreation and Community Services Department has been given “the goal” of bringing 2,000 teenagers to Camp Fresno this summer for three-night sessions. Organizations such as Boys & Girls Clubs, Fresno Barrio Unidos and the Fresno Jakara Movement (which Dyer cited as examples) are being welcomed to utilize the facility; the same offer has gone out to school districts.
“Our youth have been cooped up for the past year during the pandemic,” Dyer said. “Many of them have been limited to the couch or the table or their electronic devices. I believe that during any time in our history, now is when we need our youth outdoors exposed to a different environment, away from their families and in a place where they can socialize, interact with nature and try new activities.
“That’s what we’re going to provide, and that’s why we’ve been pushing really hard to get this done.”
It is encouraging Dyer sees the value in Camp Fresno, located 13 miles from Shaver Lake in a popular summertime destination for camping, fishing, swimming and hiking.
Previous administrations have largely ignored much-needed capital improvements to the camp’s cabins, water and sewer systems, all of which were spelled out in a 2015 assessment report by an outside engineering firm. This period of neglect coincided with a massive statewide tree die-off that was felt more acutely in the Sierra National Forest than anyplace else.
Dead trees threaten camp’s closure
By 2017, Camp Fresno contained so many dead ponderosa and sugar pines — more than 600 — that the Forest Service threatened its closure unless all the safety hazards were cut down. City officials responded by passing that responsibility to the camp’s ex-concessionaire, a couple with no tree-felling experience, and sending them a $111,076.17 invoice for their efforts. (No subsequent attempts have been made to collect, Jarrod Deaver said this week.)
What about last year’s wildfires? Fortunately, Camp Fresno, as well as Dinkey Creek, McKinley Grove and most of the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness, were spared.
Dyer said he had never been to Camp Fresno until an April 12 visit. Photos posted on Twitter showed the mayor, dressed in jeans, running shoes and a black and gray hoodie, checking out Dinkey Creek’s famous swimming holes and sitting on a teeter-totter.
His initial impression?
“I was overwhelmingly and pleasantly surprised,” Dyer said. “From some of the stories I had heard, I thought I was going to find cabins being held up by wires.
“The reality is most of the cabins are in good condition, even if they are a little rustic. But the cafeteria and recreation areas are in great condition. We just need to put some money into it, some elbow grease, and I think it’s going to be a pristine camp.”
An asset ‘we need to better utilize’
Camp Fresno consists of 51 one- and two-bedroom cabins, some nearly a century old, each with bedding and a small kitchen area containing a gas stove. Dyer said a few cabins need to be “torn down.” Most require only minor maintenance and cleaning.
Of even greater concern are the camp’s water and sewage lines, described as “very poor” in the 2015 engineering report and showing signs of leakage. Dyer said the city’s wastewater division is currently doing an assessment of the sewer system and that a new water tank will be delivered and installed.
Although some log decks have been removed from near the cabins, there is much splitting and relocating work left to do. City officials also await word from the Sierra National Forest on any additional hazard trees that need to be felled.
The funding to rehabilitate Camp Fresno will be “cobbled together” from sources that include Measure P and federal COVID-19 stimulus funds, Dyer said. He envisions the work being done by a combination of city employees, outsource hires and eager volunteers. The 2015 report broke down improvements into four priority levels. The estimated costs for phase one (building improvements, new water tank installation, replace sewer lines at two-bedroom cabins) is $872,720 and $1.69 million for phase two (replace septic tanks at two-bedrooom cabins and restrooms/shower buildings, new water lines and building improvements).
“I see an asset that we need to take better care of and better utilize as a city,” Dyer added. “There’s just so much there, it’s hard for me to believe we haven’t done this in the past.”
Better late than never — both for Camp Fresno and the city’s nature-starved youths.
This story was originally published April 28, 2021 at 10:25 AM.
