Backcountry Users At Yellowstone National Park To Pay A Little More

Published Date

February 6, 2015

It will cost you a bit more to venture into the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park for overnight trips/Kurt Repanshek

Disappearing into the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park is going to cost you a little more beginning in May when the park moves to a fee structure designed to help offset the costs of operating the backcountry permit system.

The higher fees will be in place between Memorial Day and early September. Under the schedule, all individuals 9 or older will have to pay a per-night fee. Backpackers and boaters will pay $3 per-person, per night, with groups of five or more paying a lump sum total of $15 per night. Stock users will be charged $5 per-person, per night, but with no cap. So, if you and four or five or seven friends were planning to backpack in Yellowstone for six nights, your backcountry fee would be $90, or $115 if you used the $25 advance registration system to secure your campsites

If you're a frequent traveler in Yellowstone's backcountry, you'll have the option of buying an Annual Backcountry Pass for $25, which covers the per-person, per-night backcountry fees for the individual pass holder for the calendar year in which the pass is purchased.

Reservations are currently being accepted for backcountry trips for 2015. Applications submitted prior to April 1 are processed in random order by lottery. Reservations received after April 1 are processed in the order in which they are received.

Park staff say revenues from the advanced reservation and per-night fees are expected to cover just over 40 percent of the costs associated with operating the park's nine backcountry offices. This reduced dependence upon the park's base operating funds will allow Yellowstone to reallocate money to support other important park operations.

It costs the park about $325,000 a year to operate its nine backcountry offices, park spokesman Al Nash said. He did not know what projects elsewhere in the park would benefit from the higher backcountry fee schedule.

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Submitted by SmokiesBackpacker on February 6, 2015 - 1:03pm.

Wonder why Yellowstone can make concessions for an annual backpacking pass and the Smokies could not.

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