Ft. Lincoln to Open up for Camping June 1st - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

The campground at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park south of Mandan opens June 1. That's a little more than a year after it was closed due to last years flood.

You can still see the marks on the trees. Parts of Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park were covered by as much as 7 feet of river water last summer. Trees, cabins and electrical utilities were damaged, and as much as a foot of silt was left behind when the water receded.

"That line, that horizon is this spring it was just the line of death. Everything below that was just awful looking, and now you can still see it and it's still visible but as you can see the trees have bounced back and all the grass we planted last spring it's really nice, it's green and it sure makes you feel a lot better when you see green instead of brown," says park manager Dan Schelske.

They started cleaning up last September. Schelske says it will take a coupe of years to fully recover, but he's also surprised by how good it looks considering what happened. He says all told they pumped about six million gallons of water out of the campground.

It's gonna be over a year unfortunately that we've been closed down here in the campground. And judging by the phone calls we've gotten this morning alone, I think were gonna be very busy. I think they're gonna come in and they're gonna want to see what we've done and how the campground has changed," says Schelske.>>

Schelske says 80-100 people have volunteered there help in the clean-up effort. they have a full summer of activities planned. He says they hope to offer helicopter rides, wagon rides, and some BBQ's along with regular camp programs like Halloween in June.