Fort Pickens campground, Pensacola, Fl.

[expo]

We're planning our first visit there this winter and was wondering if anyone's been there since it opened back up?

I was wondering if it's fully open and if the sites still have elect. and water and if there's an oil slick present.

[historyljc]

No oil. I know loop A is open. It's been a couple of months since I was through there. Take a look at Reserve America. It will show what's available.

[Floridafran]

expo,

I live at Pensacola Beach and my husband, Tom, and I spent this past weekend at Ft. Pickens. It was our maiden voyage in our first MH and we liked the idea of being close to home if we needed anything. We will be traveling with 4 cats and this was their maiden voyage, too, so we knew there was always the possibility that one (or more) of them would need to be taken home early. Fortunately, all went well. We didn't hit any trees or drive off with the awning out or the antennas up.

To answer your question. As of now, all the loops are open and to my knowledge, all sites that had water and/or electric before, have them now. We made our reservation through reservation.gov which is linked with Reserve America. At the reservation.gov site they have very good descriptions of each site noting things like: pad length, height limits, obstructions, amount of shade, etc. I didn't know all of this before we made our "scouting run" to pick out potential sites. (We live less than 10 miles away.) If I had, I could have eliminated some of the sites we thought might work after our quick drive through the loops but which the reservation.gov site showed us would not do for one reason or another.

As for the oil. We walked along the Sound side beach from the fort back to the campground and saw a very few, tiny weathered tar balls. No slick in the water. We were on the Gulf side beach, near the mouth of the channel, a few weeks ago during high surf conditions and saw nothing. We do still occasionally get oiled debris (bottles, cans, other jetsam and trash) washing ashore, but it is scattered and quickly removed. And there are still scattered tar balls and patties but they are working hard to remove as much as they can and have begun using a huge, mechanical sifter to get the stuff covered by blowing sand.

Barring a hurricane in the near Gulf, which could really stir things up, we hope the worst is over. As things are now, I don't believe you'd be hindered from enjoying yourself.

Let me know if I can help in any other way or answer more questions. I admit to being biased. I love this island enough to make it my home - hurricanes and oil spills notwithstanding.

[bobbyl]

We were there 2 weeks ago and everything is open. (All Loops) The beaches were clean and no oil visble. I would recommend staying in the B loop, much more open and shady.