This Land, Your Land

North Carolina's state parks had a banner year in 2011, recording 14.25 million visits, which matches the all-time record set in 2009 and slightly exceeds the 14.19 million park visits in 2010, the N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation said in a news release today.

Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Dare County had the highest attendance last year at 1.32 million visits, which was actually a bit fewer than 2010's 1.47 million.

Among 39 state parks and state recreation areas, 15 reported increases in attendance in 2011.

Parks with significant increases in visitation include Dismal Swamp State Park in Camden County (34 percent), Elk Knob State Park in Watauga County (50 percent), Jones Lake State Park in Bladen County (26 percent), Kerr Lake State Recreation Area in Vance County (24 percent) and Medoc Mountain State Park in Halifax County (31 percent).

Several parks with new or improved amenities opening last year saw big jumps in attendance. A new 700-foot swim beach and picnic area at Lake James State Park opened for its first full season, and the park saw a 70 percent jump in visitation. A renovated marina opened at Carolina Beach State Park, a new equestrian trail network opened at Medoc Mountain and a number of hiking trails, including a volunteer-built summit trail, opened at Elk Knob.

Full attendance figures are available here.

Jones Lake State Park in Bladen County, below, was one of several state parks to see attendance increases in 2011. Click on the photo for more information about Jones Lake.

The State Parks system is reporting success in the first full season of its camping reservations system, with more than 250,000 campers using the system.

The reservation system, which is available for the state parks' 3,000 campsites, 106 picnic shelters and community buildings, vacation cabins and visitor center auditoriums, was instituted in July 2009.

The Division of Parks and Recreation news release doesn't give figures comparing 2010 to 2009, but says state park campgrounds reported a 20 percent jump in use during the first few months that the reservations system was in place.

In total, the parks' online and call center-based system placed 61,484 reservations for campsites, picnic shelters and other amenities this year. While 47.6 percent of people making reservation still made them in person at the park, 52.4 percent of all reservations - 35.9 percent made online and 16.5 percent through a call center - went through the new system, the release says.

For campers, Jordan Lake State Recreation Area, which logged 14,124 reservations during the year ending July 30, was the most popular destination. It was followed by Kerr Lake State Recreation Area (6,162) and Hanging Rock (5,256), Stone Mountain (5,062) and Carolina Beach (4,410) state parks.

Most state park campgrounds are used by people from nearby towns, although there were exceptions. For instance, Hammocks Beach and Pilot Mountain state parks most often had campers from the Triangle. Visitors from Charlotte most often filled Lake James, Morrow Mountain, New River and Stone Mountain state parks.

Reservations can be made up to 48 hours in advance, online through individual parks' pages on the main state parks site at www.ncparks.gov, or by calling toll-free 877-7 CAMP NC (722-6762).