Overnight trips into the heart and soul of Rocky Mountain National Park is going to cost backcountry travelers a bit more beginning this summer/Kurt Repanshek
It's going to cost you a little bit more to head into the backcountry of Rocky Mountain National Park for overnight stays beginning this summer, when the permit fee climbs from $20 to $26 per trip.
Park officials say the fee, established in 1995 and last increased to $20 in 2004, is necessary to recover the administrative costs associated with managing the program, including costs of a computerized permit and reservation system.
The permits, good for up to seven backpackers, are seen as an integral part of a program that rations and distributes use throughout the park's backcountry. It's intended to minimize impacts to resources, help provide a quality experience, and ensure that sites are available for those able to plan ahead and reserve a permit in advance. While an overnight permit is required for backcountry camping year-round, the fee for obtaining the permit only applies for camping that occurs during the months of May through October when demand typically exceeds availability in many areas of the park's backcountry. The six dollar increase for the non-refundable permit becomes effective March 1, for anyone making advance reservations or after May 1, for those obtaining a permit over the counter at one of the park's Backcountry Offices.
Different from an entrance fee or fee for camping in a developed campground, the backcountry permit is based on cost recovery and all funds are applied directly to the costs of administering the program. This past October, the park proposed a change in its current recreational use fees for entrance and developed campgrounds. A public comment period followed and the proposal is still under review. A decision on those recreational use fees is expected late winter or early spring.
According to Superintendent Vaughn Baker, 'Rocky Mountain National Park retains 100 percent of the administrative fees charged for backcountry camping permits. In addition to providing the opportunity to reserve and secure campsites in advance, funds recovered through the permit fee allow for staff to provide trip planning advice and information for a safe and enjoyable trip into the wilderness. Requirements for food storage necessary to protect bears and other wildlife, mountain weather, hazards, and Leave No Trace ethics are among the information received during the permitting process. Fees that we charge enable us to provide these services.'
Comments
Well, we're back to the simple fact that IF the Congress were to adequately FUND the NPS for expected operations and backlogs and such, THEN the arguments about no additional fees might hold water.
Yes - lets charge someone else rather than the person using it. It is so much easier spending someone elses money.
Owen,
I don't necessarily disagree with you on the backcountry fees. I think it is reasonable to charge to enter the park and provide a basic level of services - museums, parking lots, consessionair facility, trail maintenance, restroom facilties and others. When you start getting into backcountry activities where incremental costs are minimal, fees should be as well.
A different take on taxes than that presented by EC.
While the bottom fifth of earners pay more than 10 percent of their income in state and local taxes, the top 1 percent pays closer to 5 percent, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates. Percentage of income is, of course, only one way to measure the tax burden — in sheer dollar terms, the wealthy pay far more than the poor. Still, the Keystone report’s authors, Greg LeRoy and Stephen Herzenberg, argue that a less regressive tax structure is the answer to state budget woes, in what is basically a sophisticated pitch for a millionaire’s tax. “It’s time to have a clear debate about the impact of inequality on public finance,” Mr. LeRoy said.
Taxing the top fifth of earners at the same rate as the middle class would bring in $200.5 billion to state and local coffers, the report says. Taxing just the top 1 percent at the same rate as the middle class would bring in $88.5 billion, 10 times the amount needed to restore five years’ worth of cuts to higher education. The report also breaks it down state by state, saying that Texas and Florida, at the top of the list, would raise about $40 billion each if they taxed the top 20 percent at the middle-class rate, while Kansas and North Carolina would raise about $2 billion each.
So what? Of course someone with low income is going to pay a larger share of their income for anything they buy. They pay more of their income for food, gas, clothing ..... Are you proposing the wealthy pay more for gas than the non-wealthy?
And I will ask the question again. Why should person A pay more than person B no matter their income?
Based on the daily articles here at NPT, there is a new or increased backcountry fee almost weekly within the NPS. As an E.TN native, I also appreciate our state park system. When folks can go to the state parks for free, use of the Smokies backcountry decreased. And the NPS is very successful in driving down use of certain areas. Charging to see fireflies is a slippery slope. They say it is for parking but that is more about crowd control. And control seems to be the underlying theme of these backcountry fees as well. I believe the NPS sees humans as "the problem". They need to start seeing horses as "the problem" in the Smokies anyway. There is no comparison between the damage done by one horse on a fragile environment and 200 backpackers. Yet horses get a free pass. Horse folks rarely backpack. What is happening, I'm afraid, is folks are desiring more local control of the NPS so arbitrary fee implementation will be nixed. I can assure you that if someone here in TN proposed paying to sleep in a state park, several heads would roll.
I have learned first hand that the lack of NPS oversight and bs law known as the Federal Lands Recreation Act have given Jarvis and his cabal free range to administer fees for hiking trails. And it is just the same principal as paying to check out a library book, I don't care what anyone says because in the Smokies, we sleep on UNIMPROVED ground. The NPS didn't create it, maintain it or administer it. They don't provide water, flat tent spaces or even bear cables. (friends groups provide that). The tide is turning on manipulative NPS bureaucrats and fee managers and they are getting it in now while they can.
Rick B I certainly agree in principle, but it's been my observation that there is not enough money in the world to get any federal agency to admit that it is "adequately" funded and stop asking for more. The fact that the NPS (or any agency) does not get all the funding to which they think they are entitled does not give them the right to tax the public directly to make up the perceived shortfall.
RMackie the Forest Service and BLM are already way ahead of NPS on that one. Lots of places where all anyone wants to do is get out the car and head off up a trail. They parachute in a porta-potty and make it a pay-for-parking site. One of my colleagues has quipped that the toilet is the Number One (and Number Two) point of contact between the federal lands agencies and the public. Why wouldn't they want to monetize that?