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hi gary- aside from respectfully suggesting you might want to check your tone (see the last paragraph in your comment, re-read and please reconsider...) i would also like to suggest that you might actually want to investigate the cash (at least the national forest reservation system) extortion fees charged (minimum night stays, reservation fees, etc.) by the concessionaires and then possibly consider writing your congressional team (skip the nps/usfs folks) and direct your passion in that direction. it's the government, not the commenters on this site, degrading the overall values in our cherished national park system by allowing the "concessionaires" to "profit" by running the reservation systems...
This is my first time visiting National Parks Traveler and I must say Kurt and Jeremy I am impressed,I really like it,keep up the good work, Phil Craggs, Bradenton,Florida
I'm a bit astonished at some of the reactions. This being a National Parks site, I thought there would be folks here who have an appreciation that we even have such resources. Instead, I see greed and capitalism-at-all-costs professed as "how it should be". What are you guys doing here, anyway, looking for some way to profit from the national park and forest system? I'm glad you weren't around when they were established, we'd have a bunch of McDonald's and Holiday Inns instead of a national heritage.
Sure, call in and buy up the campsites that you know will be in demand, because it is summer and that's the only time some folks can get off work to go there. Then sell it to the richest SOB you can find, boy, yeah, that's America in action! Get yours, to heck with everybody else, right? Even though you added absolutely nothing of value to what you're selling, call in early and get what you can, then gouge what you can out of some poor working guy who couldn't get through on the phone for his reservation because you and the other profiteers had the lines jammed up. Now THAT's putting our national parks to good use in the good old American way...for your personal profit, yup boy.
And what's this about a can of worms being opened by making the reservations non-transferable? You make your reservations; if you can't go, you call and they refund all but $10 of your money, big deal, what's so difficult about that? So you can't give them to your buddy, if he wants to go then go with him, or have him call and make his own reservations. If that's a "problem", I'd hate to see what happens when actual real problems come up.
I'm glad that this forum doesn't represent the norm, at least out in our part of the west. Many of us here consider Yosemite a national treasure, and are grateful that folks had the foresight (and the fortitude to battle greedy capitalists who saw only dollars, sound familiar?) to at least try to preserve it for future generations.
That's right, encourage profiteering from anything you can find; grab up those campsites and auction them off. Then we'll see a bunch of spoiled yuppies in their rented motorhomes filling up what used to be a nice place, no doubt traipsing through everyone else's camp, leaving out their food for the bears, and working at their laptops while the kids watch DVD's from their campsite, so they can keep up with their ebay sales and investments.
Some of you don't deserve to have national parks; you deserve what would be the product of your dream, a bunch of paved strip malls where people can do what's really important, make money.
I believe that as the price of these PLBs come down, they'll become standard fare in a day-pack. I'm hopeful that the NP Service will attach a Hefty fine on people who'll sound the alarm, only to get "rescued" so they don't have to climb back up the Canyon. I agree w/Phil that people have to take responsibilty, but alot of people today figure a way that Nothing is Their fault. They'll be the ones that will say that there weren't enough warning signs.
I'd like to climb Mt Everest; but guess what, I can't..but then again maybe I can...someone will pick me off the Mt when I need'em. I'll send my PLB signal.
help me help me help us all.
I enjoy the shutter service. Leaving the car behind, and letting someone else drive is fine with me. At the Grand Canyon it just makes since; there would be too many cars on too few roads; and you certainly don't want to add another lane. And besides there's nothing worse than a hot and tired Dad trying to find the correct turn with a car load a kids and a "feed-up" wife!
Also having the shuttle take and pick you up at the trail head is a plus.
I wasn't making an assumption; I was speaking to a hypothetical situation. But, as for yard sale items, there's nothing that says you couldn't just give them some money, share the profits of your ebay sale (though that sale in itself is rife with difficulty), or organize with them against a system that puts you at odds with them and judges success and value by a profit margin. You had plenty of other choices, and plenty of other actions possible to you. Most of us with any kind of privilege at all do (if only to organize), but as long as we live with the veil of powerlessness, we are going to think that all we can do is live to maximize our goods at the expense of everyone else. And, that's a travesty on so many levels.
But, let's take what you are saying seriously for a moment. It's true that I breathe and move, and I don't understand whether my breathing and moving is for good or for bad. I breathe anyhow. Fair enough. What I don't do is build an economic system where I pretend that my success at breathing is an honest-to-God value whose capital should be maximized and re-invested. In the natural world, we breathe, and we let the chips fall as they may. We take action because of what we are prone to do by nature. In the capitalist world, we see that we are breathing, turn our breath into a commodity, and do our best to maximize that value as though no other alternative could possibly be worthwhile. That's not nature; that's abstract at its worst. It leads to relative powerlessness for most and the sad fact we as a world haven't lived anywhere near our potential. In making a commodity of one aspect of our existence, we've forfeited much more coherent values. Instead of breathing, it's the price of our breath (or our life, or our iPhone, or our progress, or our eBay item) that matters. And, that's why we are talking about such obtuse things as whether a campground spot should be re-sold instead of the birds of the air and the touch of our lover's cheek.
We are active beings by nature; we don't need a mechanical system to dictate our actions for us - all the capitalists and socialists and the liberal hybrids (perhaps, a pun intended) should be very careful of losing sight of the trees that make up the forest.
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World
I am curious why your first assumption is that the reservation was sold to some "rich guy"? It may very well have been sold to a group of Tibetan monks or bought by a church charity to be given to a poor family from the projects or maybe even to a downtrodden Native American from Pine Ridge, SD.
"Now, the rich have access, and those who have a special skill for snapping up campsites have a business." Well maybe. I've made a lot of money on eBay selling things I've bought at yard sales from people who could've probably used the extra money. What should I have done? Passed up the opportunity because I knew I'd be haunted by the dictum: "There is never an end to the story of even the smallest action we take in life."
You know, your world view can get to be a bit paralyzing.
Real life requires real actions.
0r as Prince Hamlet once said "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
No, it's not the end of the story. If I might have gotten that spot for $20, but you snapped it up and sold it to some rich guy, then what am I supposed to do? I didn't ask for that reality. Now, the rich have access, and those who have a special skill for snapping up campsites have a business. And, everyone else is left out in the cold. A lot of people aren't happy, and that's just the single issue of the campsite itself (there are a lot of other intertwining things as well).
Again, your market is not the vacuous paradise you'd like it to be. There is never an end to the story of even the smallest action we take in life.
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World
Bottom line, if someone wants to pay for a campsite reservation that another person obtained legally, well then, that is just fine with me. Both parties are happy, end of story.
How unlimited are your options? Anyone can find unlimited options, in a manner of speaking, from within a prison cell. They can count sheep, they do push ups, they can scratch themselves, they can imagine all the things they aren't doing. From the standpoint of number, even the smallest atom has within it unlimited numbers of options. But, that's to equivocate, no? When we say unlimited, we mean something else, and if one thinks that Bill Gates, the President of the United States, you, a child dying of AIDS in subsaharan Africa, a prison inmate, a woman on the Pine Ridge reservation have the same unlimited choices, you'd be guilty of a blind delusion. If you mean to say that within our own limits, we have so much we can do, that's a truism. It says nothing about justice, especially whether we can justify our particular range of choices as opposed to someone else's.
A most startling thing to say! What can make you so sure? Let's keep reading.
Wow, quite remarkable. These are the great innovations and advancements of civilization under capitalism? I'm quite impressed. These apparent innovations and advancements only make my own case stronger.
You know that's nonsense, and I allude to my example in my first response to you. People are deeply affected by the choices of others through no choice of their own. Freedom does not exist in a vacuum (nor does anything else in nature). We cannot atomize relational choices into their component parts and see how they move as though nothing else in the system matters. So, each of our choices causes an involuntary reality for some other being. Even if you and I trade voluntarily, the new reality where that trade happens and affects everything and everyone else, came quite involuntarily. Perhaps, that's why we live in a world where iPhones and hybrid cars are mistaken for human progress. Who set the market on determining those values? More importantly, who didn't? Who was left out?
That's only because there isn't a movement of solidarity strong enough to stop it in part because we are cannibalizing each other using this myth of free trade. My notion that public interests are easier to resist than private actually is an adaptation of Aristotle's views on the subject, someone you libertarians love to quote. I've just inverted the purpose.
I'm not looking for a world without struggle or trying to control the fate of our world. All collectives will break down just as all our bodies break down in death. Just the fact we live in a universe where we can't know the full implications of a single one of our actions should make us humble about trying to understand what allows for "efficiency and growth" much less trying to determine the specific application of those values. The question isn't whether small collective ownership is infallible but whether it is rational given humanity's relatively blind place in the universe. For a lot of reasons too myriad to explore here or at this time, I think that it is the most rational and most consistent with our experience. Everything else is far too large for us to grasp and control.
Anyhow, this is interesting, but people here will want to know we really do care about campground fees in the parks. I will assert again that there is another path between the right of public control over spaces and so-called free market control. And, if we see this issue in isolation, we will never get at the larger implications. I mean, aren't people tired of these issues constantly popping up like weeds? No matter how you answer this question by itself, you are going to be pissing a lot of people off.
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World
This situation smells to high heaven. I have been following the story for several years, and at no time has the Superintendent even tried to offer an explanation for the long string of "extensions". That, in itself, should bring about a detailed investigation into the matter
"You can become decidedly 'unfree' if you aren't at the top of the trading chain." I disagree. I am certainly not at the top of the trading chain, nor do I aspire to be, but the free market offers me a virtually unlimited set of options with which to innovate, collaborate and grow that have nothing to do with climbing some hierarchal ladder of domination and control.
All of society's innovations and advancements come from the free market. Toyota is building hybrid cars because its customers and the market demanded it, the iPhone, which is about revolutionize personal electronic communications, was invented because the market place was ready for it and needed it and getting around the country cheaply via Southwest Airlines was accomplished because they saw that the old hub-and-spoke design of conventional air travel was expensive and inefficient, so they just came up with a new point-to-point system that has revolutionized air travel to the benefit of its customers and the economies of the areas they serve.
I'm very happy to have the choices that I do in a the free market of ideas and capital. All transactions are voluntary. I can participate up the point that I feel comfortable and then opt out when I feel like that enough is enough. With government's ability to levy (confiscate) my wealth to use on destructive things like unjust wars, farm subsidies, theft of people's land (Grand Teton & Shenandoah N.P.) and the illegal detention and spying on of innocent and un-indicted persons is something I have little to no control over. As the old reggae songs says "No matter who you vote for, da government always gets in."
Your idea of small-scale collectivism is never a good road to go down because it never stays small and by forcing anything in that direction always distorts it and eventually destroys it. Just like in nature, economics is a force for efficiency and growth. The collection plate at my church is where small-scale and voluntary collectivism works best, but here we are answering to a much higher authority.
Beamis,
I'm a little surprised you have me pegged, after my remarks, as a "government as equalizer" sort of person, especially when I criticized government solutions, pointed you to a set of essays where I said that a government "right" to Yellowstone National Park simply does not exist, and let you in on the fact that I was "anti-authoritarian."
Most of the people here, I would suspect, are not socialists but liberals in the John Rawls sense, meaning that they believe that free enterprise is okay so long as there is some kind of safety net. Perhaps, there are a few socialists, who would see a large state solution as the means to the ends of a stateless society. I don't throw in with either of those camps. Both to me are paternalistic and arrogant in their faith of knowing what's best for the world; I think I understand and appreciate the libertarian impulse not to give up control to people who would urge global solutions to things they cannot possibly understand at such a macro level.
Nevertheless, I critiqued the idea that free enterprise makes for everyone being happy. In fact, it doesn't. There's no guarantee of that at all. You can become decidedly "unfree" if you aren't at the top of the trading chain. I did not say, "Therefore, governments should control campground fees at a fair market value" the way that liberals and socialists might. I didn't say anything at all. For me, the struggle is on different terms, against hierarchy (in the grand sense) and the presumptions of people who justify various types of these hierarchies. So called free market capitalism and socialism are both on the same continuum.
All that will still come down to the question of what I would do about the question of campground fees and who should control their sale and whether they should be available for re-sale. If one doesn't support the government or private individuals having control, and small-scale collectivism (my preferred choice in a different world) isn't a viable option given the practical reality, then the only question is which solution has the best tactical possibility of contributing to a world where our ends are possible. I believe that comes by supporting public control, not because public control is justified, but simply because the more diffuse the ownership right that is claimed, the more abstract it is, the easier it is to actually resist. And, resisting this privilege is the main aim I have. I think anyone who actually looks at libertarian views closely and really wants to protect life, liberty, and property (as opposed to the "right" to life, liberty, and property), will see that capitalism and the "free market" is a fool's gold (so to speak). The best way is to see that we have no basis to say that one being is more worthy than another and to resist all the forces that enforce arbitrary values to the contrary.
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World
Don't you love the quote by the park superintendent? If they are not in real estate then what are they doing leasing out 36 buildings to a developer, especially one who hasn't even shown that he has the financial backing to do the work??? What's even more appalling is that even though the develper doesn't have the financial backing the park is giving him the go ahead to start working on 3 buildings within Ft. Hancock, Gateway NRA.
Although I personally think the shuttles are a much better alternative to severe overcrowding of roads and parking lots, they do have their drawbacks. At the Grand Canyon, my senior-citizen parents had troubling getting on the shuttles as they were often standing-room-only after the first stop - and they didn't feel they could stand for many stops.
"If people think they need to bid on a public service, they are way off base. Public means open to everyone and to me, at a reasonable price".
In a nation where equality is everything, and where advantage need not be earned, but only redistributed, how could anything be more virtuous?
Well at least I understand the socialist mindset of most of the readers of this website. This will not keep me from howling in the wilderness about the virtues of the free market and the advantages it holds over the statist vision of government dominated wild land and recreation areas. Your faith in Big Brother astounds me.
I totally agree. Non-transferrable reservations would be the way to go here. If people think they need to bid on a public service, they are way off base. Public means open to everyone and to me, at a reasonalble price.
Should people want to pay a lot, put a donation to the Yellowstone organisation. Then you know it will be put to good use.
Erik,
I think part of the argument for these beacons is just that it will provide a little more security for rangers and pilots out doing Search And Rescue. These beacons have the ability to guide SAR to within 10 feet or so of the device. We've probably all seen some of these past wilderness searches go on for a week, with TV reporters providing hour-by-hour coverage. But with these devices, SAR might spend less than a day on a rescue precisely because of the type of pin-point electronic accuracy available.
The question of abuse is fair. I think we could get a decent idea of the abuse potential if we were to ask SAR how often cell phones are used for less-than-emergent need in the backcountry today. We've probably all heard stories of it happening, but what is the real scoop? At this point, I'd say the potential for abuse of these Personal Locater Beacons is low, only because of the high cost associated with buying them. They cost hundreds of dollars and are really useless unless you are hiking, which limits the number of people who would be attracted to such a device, and limits those would also pay for such a device. Just like cell phones and other technology, prices will come down over time, and this type of story may not be that unusual in the future.
The real problem with these devices is not that wilderness values will be lost. It's that more rangers and pilots will be lost if the unnecessary use of the these beacons proliferates.
Good answer Ken, and I agree 100%. People will rely on this "Get out of Jail Free" card too much and push themselves too far. I even wonder how most people these days can function without a cell phone in their possession. We get so attached to these gadgets we forget how to strategize, plan, and think for ourselves.
Ken's a good guy -- he showed me the ropes (literally) back in 1985 when we were collecting money (a LOT of coinage) and trash tossed over one of the overlooks at Grand Canyon. Lightning bolt came out of nowhere and you should have seen everyone running like rabbits. Right beforehand the hair on my arms was tingling with static electricity and one of the females present had her hair standing straight out from her head when someone suddenly realized what was about to happen. One of my fonder canyon memories that luckily turned out well for everyone!
-- Jon Merryman
It's not that difficult folks -- you ask to see some ID and ask for the reservation number before you give the guy his space. No ID match, no campsite. Even an illegal alien with no English skills can manage that process. There won't be an empty site during peak demand seasons -- there'll be someone getting there bright and early (probably me) hoping to be first on the waiting list, and then the park gets the $20 of the person who reserved and didn't show, PLUS the $20 of the person who actually used the site. Why would you deny the park of the money it's entitled to? If I rent a condo to someone for a week at the beach, they're not entitled to turn around and rent it to someone else -- it's not their condo.
I had six tickets to Cal Ripken's last game purchased at $10 apiece. Could have sold them for $300 apiece or more on eBay, but I opted to sell two of them for $10 each and I made sure it was someone who really appreciated it, not some sleazeball off the street slinking up to me asking if I had an extra ticket.
Now there's a place in society where costs have spiraled out of control -- professional sports. If people weren't spending so much money on overpriced tickets to baseball, football, basketball and ice hockey, they'd have money to burn for park entrances fees. Think about it -- family of 4 at a single NFL game would cost about the same (or more) as reserving a campground for a fortnight. Unless of course you're going to the 'Bama game in which case you can rent an RV for two weeks instead :)
One final thought -- you think all these intrepid entrepreneurs are paying taxes on the money they made reselling campground reservations and sports tickets? Any tax experts out there? I don't know for certain, but wouldn't you think they should be paying income tax on that money they made?
-- Jon Merryman
Get over your silly love affair with your car people. The absolute BEST way to travel in the national parks is by utilizing their shuttle system. From pre-dawn departures that allow easy access to the most popular hiking trails, to the convenience and clock-work precision of the schedules, and best of all, the relief of NOT having to circle endlessly for parking spaces, the propane fueled shuttle system is possibly the greatest improvement to the NPS since the topo map. It's just a shame that you still have to negotiate the entrance to the park to make use of the shuttles. Some day, remote access parking, such as you find at major airports, will make visiting the national parks the truly hassle-free experience that it SHOULD be for all visitors. How about it lobbying for that starting TODAY!
Merryland,
Thanks for posting the letters you've received back from the park service. Pretty interesting that they are nearly word for word identical with each other. I've been thinking about the special use permits that both mention. Specifically, I've been wondering about the distinction between a special use permit for a movie, like The Rock which was filmed on Alcatraz, and the Scion event. Both required the use of extra rangers to keep things in line, and both created profits for their sponsors.
The presence of Alcatraz in the movie may have helped sell tickets, but in my opinion, there was something very different about the Scion event, which was built to sell cars on park land. I may watch The Rock in the theater or on TV, but the Scion event was meant to be experienced in person on public land. As both letters indicate, there was careful consideration given to having an interpretive talk or two, and to have artists provide their own interpretation of life on Alcatraz. But, for anyone who has seen the video, seen the photos, and read the reports in the newspaper, this event was not an artists retreat, it was a giant private party -- designed to sell cars to young folks. I'm still very bugged by this.
The reply came in from Director Bomar via Sue Masica... look familiar? No doubt Mary asked Sue who asked Rudy who pulled out his template response and it got forwarded down the line. How efficient of them!
<><><><><>
Mr. Merryman:
Director Bomar asked me to respond to your recent inquiry (7/1/07) regarding an event on Alcatraz Island, part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. I am informed that the event was a private event, conducted on June 16, 2007 under the terms of a special use permit. Such events are conducted after hours and are closely monitored by National Park Service staff to ensure compliance with permit conditions designed to prevent damage to park resources and maintain visitor safety.
All special events on Alcatraz Island are required to have an educational component. In the case of the Scion event, event organizers worked with National Park Service and Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy interpretation staff to design a program integrating ranger talks with dance performances, ecologically sustainable fashions, and an art gallery featuring original paintings, photographs and sculptures on the themes of Alcatraz and transformation. The art gallery will remain on display for several weeks, offering an enhanced experience of the island for visitors who are interested in art.
The National Park Service issues special use permits for a wide variety of commercial uses, including the filming of television and print advertisements for a variey of products and services. The National Park Service does not use the nationality of the applicant as a basis for granting or denying these permits.
Thank you for your interest and concern about the National Park Service.
___________
Sue Masica
National Park Service
Chief of Staff
phone: 202.208.3818
fax: 202.273.0896
I just did the Zion National Park shuttle. It was very nice not having to drive. Sit back and listen to your tour guide / bus driver and learn. The waiting time between shuttles was a massive 5-7 minutes. Just enough time to take a few more pictures of this natural wonder.
While I've visited Glacier National Park many times, I've never really encountered big traffic jams but the environ sure could use a break from so many cars. I'm glad parks are doing this even tho it will cut into my freedom of travel somewhat.