As the holiday weekend arrives, campers are returning to the county campgrounds.

The campgrounds at Hamilton County Parks opened last weekend with a few restrictions still in place, according to Brian Lammers, Hamilton County Conservation Director.

“The shower houses were closed, but we did open up the fill latrines,” he said during a briefing to the Hamilton County Board of Supervisors this week.

“We had a fair number of number of people in — about 80 units down at Little Wall Lake, and several at Briggs Woods Park. So, people are starting to come out,” he said.

The park rangers reported that as soon as they drove into to the park, they saw people start to scatter into social distancing arrangements, Lammers said.

“I’m not surprised, but we’re going to continue verbally letting people know that six-feet are required (between people) and to keep the group sizes down,” he said.

Lammers said this weekend, they will open up the modern shower houses at the parks, with the exception of the shower house at Little Wall Lake due to the deteriorated condition of the facility. The restrooms will be opened, he said.

“We’ll continue with the state required guidelines for cleaning. We’ll get everyone trained on that and then we’ll open up on Friday, just in time for the holiday weekend,” he said.

He said the limit of groups of 10 people will be continued for the shelters and cabins until further notice. Playgrounds and canoe rentals will remain closed until the county gets the green light from the state to reopen.

Briggs Woods Golf course is open again and operations are running smoothly, according to Lammers. A pass-through line has been established so golfers can sign in the clubhouse. The bar is not open and meals are not being served, he said.

“We don’t want to get too crazy as far as offering meals and that yet,” he said. “We’re still operating at that limited capacity. On league nights, right now, we’re not doing any meals.”

Lammers said the course is looking at how to handle tournaments. The first club tournament is on June 3.

“I believe what we’re going to do is have the tournament but not a gathering afterwards. They would just have to go home after the tournament and score it later,” he said.