If you look at the website it says camp sites are available on a first come first served basis unless reserved. Two sites are held back from the reservation system. You can pay a $7 fee to the online reservation company for the privilege of reserving a $20/night primitive campsite. Sounds simple right?
We got to the campground early. There were signs on many, if not most, campsites stating they were reserved for Friday night. Fine, it was Thursday and we only wanted to stay 1 night. So we grabbed a nice site and set up camp.
That night a family came by and said they had reserved our campsite online and the nerve of us for camping there! We told them we weren't moving and they should talk to a Ranger. They were furious but they did find a Ranger and we never heard from them again. Apparently they camped in a different site.
The problem is that when we went to pay for our site the HQ was closed (budget cuts) so we simply followed the instructions posted on the door. We filled out a form, added our $20 and left it in a secure box. With nobody on duty nobody told the website that our site was no longer available.
I guess they are used to dealing with the conflicts that arise by directing the latecomers to another site or overflow site. Still they really should insist that sites be reserved a few days ahead, it is too easy to reserve a site that is already taken. In the software industry this is what we call a bug.
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