With Labor Day weekend upon us, Whidbey Island’s state parks are expecting the usual influx of visitors, but if trends hold true more of them will be from the neighborhood.

Gas prices reached record highs this summer, which has prompted many islanders to do their exploring closer to home.

Fort Ebey State Park, on the island’s west side, has reported an increase in local, first-time visitors.

“We’re busier this year because people are staying,” Park Manager Aaron Terada said of the increase in visitors from neighboring areas.

Although gas prices are now dropping a bit, area parks expect the trend to hold strong for Labor Day weekend.

Angie Carlson of Coupeville on Monday drove her boys Luke, 9, and Gabe, 6, to Fort Ebey for a day of fun on the coastal portion of the park. These first-time visitors have tweaked their summer travels this year as a result of gas prices.

“Poulsbo is the farthest we’ve driven this summer,” she said.

Carlson continues to shuttle her kids to nearby parks, but is content to stay close to home.

“This is the fifth beach we’ve visited this week,” she said.

Despite an increase in camping reservation cancellations, which Terada said may be from non-local campers who must travel greater distances to visit the park, the 50 campsites at Fort Ebey have sold out almost every night since mid-June.

“We expect a full fall season, too,” he said.

Almost 18,00 people have visited the 645-acre park this year, he said. Over the course of last year, Fort Ebey logged 21,635 visitors.

Deception Pass Assistant Manager Rick Blank has also noticed changes in the number of park visitors this year, although he attributes most of it to the dismal weather.

“It seems to me like there was three weeks of sunshine this summer. The rest was rain,” he said. “Day use decreased a lot because of weather, not gas.”

What he has noticed is that people are staying longer. Instead of staying for only a couple ofnights campers are often extending their stays to four days. Blank also noted that visitors are opting to remain in the park during their stays and are taking fewer day trips to Coupeville, Oak Harbor and Anacortes.

This new pattern of longer stays and hanging out more in the park may be another reflection of the $4 a gallon gas this summer.

While the park does not officially track where campers come from, Blank has notice that there are fewer long-distance visitors.

“There’s been a decrease in the number of motor homes from the Midwest and the South,” he said.

The decrease in RV traffic has led Blank to believe that there are fewer folks driving their gas guzzlers long distances.

While campsite reservations have held strong at Deception Pass, day use has decreased dramatically. During June, day use was down 51 percent from last year.

“On the weekends it’s busy, but during the week it’s really empty,” Blank said.

Between 2 and 3 million people visit the park in a normal year, but this year Blank estimates that Deception Pass has only logged about 800,000 visitors from January through July.

“This is terrible.” he said. “It’s definitely lower than in previous years . . . fuel is a part of it, but the majority is poor weather.”

The weather should be at least partly sunny this weekend. Labor Day for many islanders may simply mean a short trip to the park.