Recent comments

I've used my share of back entrances, friends' couches, etc. to get across the country and into and through parks and around various kinds of user fees. That kind of solution can only work for a demographically narrow group of people. It's also only evidence that Titanic America has different class levels on its boat. As much fun as it is to hitchhike sometimes (one of my best experiences in life was hitchhiking to Jackson and back), meet strangers, and do this sort of thing, it's: 1) still evidence of one's own privilege (it's not for everyone; I couldn't imagine large families - especially many people of color willing or able to take the same kinds of risks around regulations to visit a park - which leads to some of the absurdities surrounding people's attitudes toward immigration, but that's another matter altogether); 2) evidence of a limited range of options (I've seen relatively wealthy people do the same thing in and around parks in order to have romantic and exciting adventures - yet, the same people can still make other choices while poorer people are told they should make do). I definitely wouldn't discourage people from traveling on the cheap and being creative; that's awesome. I just hope it wouldn't blind us, though, to owning up to our own privilege and standing against class inequity in the parks (and elsewhere). User fees for public goods are just one manifestation of that; it's a regressive burden that already exacerbates a regressive class situation. And, even if I myself can find a way around it, I should not presume that what I can do implies a general rule for everyone at large (take that Kant!)

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

I use the campgrounds in the parks when available and sleep in cheap motels in rinkydink towns between the parks I'm visiting... Why? Because I'm worth it...! Actually the best accomodations have gone something like this:

Our scene opens at the entrance gate of a major national park...

Stranger: Welcome to Goldenrock National Park...
Me: Hey, do you know where I might locate Sally Sawtooth? She and I used to work at Grand Canyon together and I think she's working here this summer.
Stranger: Yeah I know Sally from Ranger Skills class two years ago. I know she's here -- at the northside visitor center I think, but she's off fightin' fires in the National Forest this month.
Me: Aww, man, and I travelled all this way to see her. Well, and the park too of course.
Stranger: So where were you planning on staying, at Sally's?
Me: Not sure, I was gonna figure that out when I caught up with her.
Stranger: Heck, you're welcome to crash on my sofa for a night or two. Any friend of Sally's can't be all that bad. Just meet me here when I get off at 2pm and you can follow me to my cabin.
Me: That's so cool -- thanks. See you at 2... [sound of car pulling away]

-- Jon Merryman

The "line between protecting the resource and providing access to people" isn't fine. In the case above, it's a half-mile long scar carved into living forest by a diesel-slurping smoke-spewing monster that does not belong in wilderness. Period.

And what is up with the title of this post? Could it be any more innocuous? This blog sensationalizes fees and cloaks environmental degradation in mundane language.

Here's a grabber for this story:

"Top Park Officials Illegally Allow Bulldozer Use in Wilderness"

That better sums up the story than the blase "Repairing Rainier: A Question of Values".

You know wilderness is more valuable than the road. Less rhetorical questions and more assertions please :)

Why anonymous? To avoid hate mail.
Yes, fees are a threat, but there are much bigger threats, like unrestrained development and environmental degradation caused by autos and fossil fuels.

"It's easy to not be bothered by increases in fees when you can pay them. Many Americans can't."
I don't know about "many", but the Americans who can't afford to pay entrance fees also can't afford $75 in gas to get to and from the nearest national park. The fee itself is inconsequential in this scenario. I don't think it's the entrance fee keeping people out as much as it is the cost of gas and lodging, especially in the parks like Crater Lake where a hotel room (in a hotel tax payers spent $17 million to rebuild) goes for up to $260 a night.

And there are plenty of ways for poor folk, like myself, to avoid paying fees if they can afford the gas to get to a park: 1. Enter after the fee booth has closed or before it has opened. Exit at the same time. 2. Enter on foot. 3. Get yourself a disability and get the Golden Access card or whatever it's called now. 4. Look up the name of an employee in the park and say you're there to visit that person. These are all sneaky ways in that should be used only by the most financially bereft.

The Park Service receives more funding per acre of land than any other conservation organization in the world. The money is misallocated toward unnecessary road maintenance, new construction, and maintaining the bloated salaries of incompetent, do-nothing managers.

If you want fee-less national parks, stop using parks' toilets, roads, pay phones, ATMs, lodges, shuttles, visitor centers, soda machines, cafeterias, and the plethora of other unnecessary development that has drastically impaired and Disney-fied our national parks and prompted recent fee increases in such parks as Crater Lake and Lava Beds.

The entire scenerio surrounding this proposed plan for Gateway National Recreation Area, Sandy Hook Unit is totally suspicious to me. I believe that the ultimate goal of the National Park Service is to divest itself of this property at a huge profit to private developers. This is a tiny National Park that that just happens to have magnificent oceanfront & riverfront land that overlooks New York City, which is just 22 miles across the water. Can you imagine what the value to the elete, monied Wall Streeters (or any other super rich clientele) to own this real estate would be??? Why can't it be left for its intended purpose--the recreational use of the public?
Why should the public allow the NPS to lose our incredibly soul pleasing National Park to a corporate/business park????

I think that once lost to the public it will become an extremely exclusive enclave for the extremely wealthy. The ordinary citizen will be excluded from this oasis of peace & serenity in New Jersey. This land was set aside for the public because of its unique situation & the desire for it to be in the public (not private) domain.

An Act of Congress set this land aside as a National Park. The National Park Service has neglected it rather than act as its steward. The NPS does not own the park, the public does. Perhaps the public needs to fire the steward.

Tied to this scenerio is the proposed replacement of the Highlands/Sea Bright bridge with a 65-70 ft. high bridge that, in my estimation, is a very dangerous height in this environment--especially in the winter. The approaches and related road building would enhance the development on Sandy Hook. Gee, isn't that convenient. This would seem to fly in the face of the endangered species and environmental issues. The bridge forms a part of the scenic view of the Twin Lights light house. If the bridge is really unrepairable why not replace it with a copy of the original. If some folks are dismayed with having to wait for a sail boat to go through the drawbridge in the summer, perhaps the ire should be directed to the sailboat owners rather than the bridge. Make the sailboats conform to the height of the bridge, or moor at another marina where they are not the cause of such friction. I, personally, find waiting for a sail boat to regally glide by a thing of beauty. The few minutes of wait are a pleasant opportunity to enjoy the scenery.

There is, in Federal District Court in Trenton, a lawsuit involving the propsed developer. That the NPS appears to be trying a backdoor approach to forcing the developer on the public is unconscionable to me. The questions that come to mind are: what is really going on; why is this being allowed to proceed: who has what on whom?

This is a serious inroad to the National Park system. If this NPS plan is successful it will be the trendsetter for other National Parks. We, the public, stand to lose a tremendous asset here in NJ to greed. Where will it go next?

Is this a case of damn the public, full speed ahead for developers?

Kurt - great new design, thanks for the update. I've updated the URL on travel.latimes.com.

In sustainable adventure,
~ Andrew
Sr. Editor/Producer, travel.latimes.com
Los Angeles Times Interactive/Tribune Co.

What irks me, we the middle class sacrifice so much for this great nation: The excessive burden of taxes, the blood for Bush's war in Iraq, and the heavy laden of labor that moves this great country of ours. Are goverment rewards us with a National Parks system that's dilapidated with huge needs for infrastructure repairs, a short professional staff to maintain it, and a budget that's a pittance that bares shame...if not sever ridicule! If we the people care enough about our National Parks, let are voices be heard and vote green in the next election in 2008. We all deserve better than are present do nothing administration.

Was there with my daughter in late May and they were closed when we arrived in the morning and later when I asked about it that same day, the ferries were operating (according to the gent at the Visitor Center desk). Seems rather odd since there was not a drop of rain the entire week we visited Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and Ohio parks.

-- Jon Merryman

I wrote to the NPS Director and already got a response (merely an acknowledgement, but very quick nonetheless). I'll forward whatever future responses I get here... (I sent a similar note to Nancy Pelosi, for what it's worth)

My note:
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Ms. Bomar, I was recently made aware that Alcatraz Island, as you know one of our National Park administered areas, recently allowed Scion (the foreign-owned car company) complete access to Alcatraz Island to host some sort of party (ExpreScion'07). Whether it was a celebration, an advertising gimmick, or anything else, I was rather disturbed to see the "Moulin Rouge"-like atmosphere that was allowed to transpire in a place that should be reserved for nothing but the most dignified purposes. And to see that National Park Service employees, in uniform, also participated in the event, is even more of an insult to those of us who hold our country's national treasures near and dear to our hearts.

Please look into this event and hold those responsible for approving it accountable. In a world where our national parklands are becoming more and more beholden to corporate for-profit interests, this is one place where we need to draw a line in the sand and say "no more."
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Her initial response, less than two hours later:
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Thank you for your email Jon concerning an event at Alcatraz........I want to acknowledge receipt of same and advise you that my Chief of Staff Sue Masica will be investigating this issue and will come back to you. Thanks for supporting our National Parks......Mary
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Mary A. Bomar
Director
National Park Service
Phone: (202) 208-3818
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Jon,

The problem with your argument is that you are making a generalization about all people who don't have means to enter the Park. From the fact that some people don't spend their money wisely, you come to the generalization that park fees might be afforded by all people if they only made different consumer choices. At least that's how I'm reading your argument...That's first of all not true of all people. Secondly, even if it were, it would still be an equity issue since people with means would still be afforded the right to make the same stupid consumer choices and afford the price and subsequent user fees for the parks. No matter what, there is an equity issue. That's why I asked you whether you believed your willingness to pay for a shortfall through user fees was a justification for everyone.

I think the user fee issue when it comes to parks is relatively lightweight because the parks have long squeezed out lower class people (except of a certain type - and they are forced into working in the parks to get in - an ironically good deal, but still a forced choice; people of means can either work or not work). When it comes to transportation costs (for instance, public transportation), health care, utilities fees (heat for instance on the Pine Ridge Reservation costs more in the winter than the entire per capita income of Lakota Indians), user fees of various kinds are already creating vast inequity discrepancies among values most people hold to be values in common. What's happening in parks, which applies more to the middle class, is squeezing people there, and we only push the inequities further when people who can afford to pay the fees do so because they can and are happy to do so. My point is that's not the only issue here, and it's not sound reasoning to raise the spending choices of some poorer people as though we are all born with equal opportunities or as though those choices always apply and are always relevant.

Finally, for those concerned about privatization, it's not at all hard to see why this is a step toward privatization, not simply because underfunding produces the impetus to say that public control isn't working, but because the park consumer has been re-defined to mean those having the means to consume. That creates a profit motive, which is best exploited by private enterprise. While that proves an efficient mechanism for those most able to afford the new reality, a lot of people are entirely left out, often through no fault and certainly no choice of their own.

(By the way, on another matter, the Yellowstone Newspaper feeds are live for anyone interested).

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

Anonymous (why anonymous?),

Point taken.

I guess there are so many articles about fees is because it's an issue that's sweeping the entire national park system and it represents, as some believe, a price escalation that is moving the parks out of the truly public sector.

How great of a threat is it? Compared to the upward-spiraling costs of reserving a room in a park lodge it's tiny. But I would argue it remains a threat.

As for non-fee articles, I look forward to writing more of them and even have a few in mind.

For something that's important to me, sure. If I feel the government isn't doing its job I try to step up through things like volunteering to plant apple trees on historic battlefields, picking up garbage along the C&O Canal towpath, or dropping a few extra bucks in the box at the small parks with no entrance fees. There are many ways to make a difference. Changing legislation and federal funding is just one of them. Writing to your elected representatives or chaining yourself to a redwood tree are others. My two children are hopefully becoming staunch advocates of our national treasures. The first step in saving our parks is getting people to appreciate them (and stop trashing them) in the first place. If we can accomplish that, I believe the rest will take care of itself. I see the parks primarily as a responsibility, not just a right.

What's fair is that everyone has the right to their opinions and the right express themselves. I see people wasting money on a daily basis on unnecessary things -- cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, toenail polish, i-pods, tanning salons, cell phones, exercise gyms, perfume, gold necklaces, cable television, body piercing (and the attendant jewelry to plug up the holes they just made), professional sports events and the team clothing they feel is necessary to buy, gas guzzling behemoths, Hyundais with fancy hubcaps and foglights, 4-person families in 5-bedroom, 3-bath McMansions pumping thousands of cubic feet of air conditioning all summer long, sprinkling perfectly good drinking water on their lawns and driving their lawn tractors around as they drink bottled water and don't take the time to recycle that plastic bottle but instead send it to the landfill. If people get their priorities in line, the vast majority of them can afford a trip to the park.

As a homeschool parent who pays thousands of dollars to the public school system each year but wants nothing to do with it, I feel your pain. It also annoys me that for-profit entities are grabbing up pieces of our national heritage. Bad bad bad.