Gas City Campground (Image Credit: File Photo/CHAT News)

By Jesse Gill

Camping

Gas City Campground opens April 6

Apr 5, 2026 | 7:00 PM

Gas City Campground opens for the season on Monday, almost three weeks earlier than it normally would.

The campground at Echo Dale Regional Park will open at its normal time on April 24.

“Usually we open the last Friday of April, but we decided to try opening earlier and just see if we get any campers in,” said the City of Medicine Hat’s customer service coordinator for Parks and Rec, Taylor Elderton.

“We’re practically booked to full capacity for most of the season, so it’s actually tough to increase bookings year over year,” he added.

“One thing that’s not happening this year, there’s usually a trailer rally, and they’re not having that this year, I think, because it overlapped with the Special Olympics, which will have campers staying here for that.”

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The camping season at Gas City Campground will also be extended by closing at the end of October instead of Thanksgiving.

The camping activity at Echo Dale continues to increase each year.

“It’s roughly a 20 per cent to 30 per cent increase year over year. It just opened just a handful of years ago,” Elderton said.

“It has increased every year as more people are aware of it, because there are only 10 sites. It’s a great place if people want to book out a handful of sites at a time for a group event.”

The swimming lake at Echo Dale is set to open on May 29.

Booking of the campsites can be done through the City of Medicine Hat’s website.

“If you go to our camping page, you can click a button and reserve right from there. You pick your site and how many days, and pay online, and it’s all done within usually a few minutes,” said Elderton.

“If you have issues, we can help you as well. You can email the campground email address, which is listed on there.”

The only people who can’t book online are people outside of Canada.

“Because of the way our system works with the postal code. We do get to talk to everyone who’s booking from out of the country, and we have quite a few,” Elderton said.

“We have people this year coming all the way from Europe, even,” he added.

“There are always people who come from the United States and drive through Canada, stopping at a bunch of our campsites throughout the country. And ours is quite a popular stop if you’re travelling across the country.”

Every site at Gas City has power, except for two small ones for campers with motorbikes staying short-term.

Their site also has two comfort cabins.

“They have a couple of bedrooms, a few beds, and you get a little kitchenette. All the bedding and stuff is provided,” Elderton said.

“Kind of like a hotel while staying at a campground. They’re quite nice.”