The cost to see Crater Lake could go up this year/NPS
Crater Lake National Park plans to charge an additional $10 for a seven-day vehicle pass later this year, moving the price of admission to $25 for vehicles and $20 for motorcycles.
The park in southern Oregon had its second-busiest year ever in 2017 with 711,749 visitors, down from 756,344 in 2016. The park is proposing the increase begin May 1. Public comments are being accepted through March 25.
If implemented, the cost for a seven-day pass will be more than double the $10 price of entry from just a few years ago.
“We are committed to keeping the park affordable but we also want to provide visitors with the best possible experience,” Superintendent Craig Ackerman said. “The money from entrance fees is used to support deferred maintenance and a variety of projects that directly benefit park visitors.”
In addition to the seven-day pass, the park’s annual pass would increase from $30 to $50. The current rate of $10 per individual and $10 per motorcycle would increase to $12 for an individual and $20 for a motorcycle.
Previous fee increases have had no negative effect on visitation levels, the park said.
This move is part of a larger National Park Service initiative to standardize fees in similarly sized national parks across the country. The current park entrance fees have been in place at Crater Lake since 2015, when the seven-day pass was increased from $10 to $15 per vehicle.
Based on feedback received when the new entrance fees were proposed in 2014, the decision was made to phase the increase over time, in part due to delays anticipated to visitors resulting from planned road construction. This increase represents the final phase of aligning the Crater Lake fees with those of similar parks.
The additional revenue from the fee increase will be used to enhance visitor services, including repair and maintenance of park facilities, restoration and rehabilitation of visitor service buildings, implementation of additional park programs, production of interpretive media, and increase of resource protection.
To comment
- Deadline: March 25, 2018
- Online: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/crlafees2018
- Mail: Superintendent, Attention: Proposed Fee Increase, P.O. Box 7 Crater Lake, OR 97604
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Comments
Since much of the park summer-autumn visitation is simply "drive through" spending only several hours
on the Rim once the North Entrance Opens, this fee increase will adversely affect visitation numbers since
most Travelers are deviating from east side Hwy 97 or westside Hwy I5 via Hwy 62 to cross the Cascade Crest.
Just as easy to visit Diamond Lake Resort driving west of CRLA avoiding the fees and even spending time
at Diamond Lake, USFS; also Hwy 62 allows potential visitors to continue either east bound
or west bound avoiding Anna Spring Entrance Traffic BottleNecks occurring because only one fee collector is working.
m13cli--
Don't just make your comment here. Make sure you also submit it to the website Kurt linked to at the bottom of the article. They have to at least address the comments an arguments submitted to that website, even though it isn't a vote and they can decide against even the overwhelming majority of the comments.
Of Particular Interest to CRLA neighboring businesses such as Fort Klamath and Union Creek Lodging is the Intolerable
Bottlenecks created by Incompetent Management of the Anna Spring Entrance Station. During the last few peak 2016-17
summer and early autumn seasons, traffic attempting to enter CRLA NP has been backed out to Hwy 62 and beyond with some visitors losing patience and leaving to complain in neighboring communities. Clearly the CRLA person responsible for managing Anna Spring Entrance is guilty of mismanagement and needs to be removed. NPS's common excuse is
that the personnel policies require longer periods to clear an employee for handling fees yet these delays are not a surprise and early planning is critical and obvious so appropriate personnel are deployed to operate both Entrance Station Fee Contact Stations.
Also, if planned in advance, The CRLA Friends Organization may be able to assist during busy holiday periods by providing volunteers to contact visitors waiting to enter and confirm if they already hold a Senior Pass and quickly may be waved through to prevent additional major Traffic Bottlenecks. Of course, There is now the Pending Added Insult of having
waited an hour amid idling gas and diesel engines fumes to be informed that the Entrance Fees are now raised to the point of discouraging farther visitation. Then, the visitor may be greeted by higher prices at Facilities Operated by Xanterra Parks and Resorts owned by multi-Billionaire Phil Anschutz of Denver; so, similar to the TRUMP GOP TAX CUTS drafted to benefit WEALTHY and the SUPER WEALTHY into the future the typical low wage NPS visitor is once again Taxed by the WEALTHY via Influencing Interior's Zinke by contributing large sums to the GOP Political Campaigns.