Pay to Hike

[Tipi Walter]

perhaps you should run for office. perhaps then, someday, you'll be in a position to exterminate all the useless breathers.

??? What?? If oxygen is free for all(until air pollution requires buying cleanng air), and we are all "breathers", in what logical way would it serve this conversation to 'exterminate all the useless breathers'?? It would be better to say, perhaps I should run for office so someday I could be in a position to reduce birthrates thereby lowering the population, open up more wilderness areas, end car tourism thru national parks, and stop charging people to backpack and camp.

[Tipi Walter]

Reservations were necessary in the busy areas of the national parks because of the sheer numbers of people who want to camp in the prime areas. We were at one backcountry campground that had room for 100 people, but most only had five or six tent sites. It's the same situation at Glacier or Yellowstone - in order to reduce crowding and ensure campsites, you make a reservation.

Too many rolling couch potatoes. Opening National Parks up to rolling car tourists was a choice the head honchos made years ago and it's coming home to bite them. Can anyone say: Cades Cove Motor Loop in a park with the worst air pollution in the country?? Uh, who's in charge? The solution to reducing crowding is elementary-school simple: Close the roads in the parks. The parks will still be wide open for the masses to use and see, but only on foot.

[minnesotasmith]

A good corollary are car drivers. In North Carolina and Tennessee we pay taxes for road use and gas but there is no daily charge to drive unlimited miles on 99% of the highways. If the state of Tennessee mandated daily tolls on all roads, people would riot.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/bl...0.3f0727b.html

Excerpt:


To repair Rhode Island roads, report calls for new tolls, taxes and higher fees


12:25 PM EST on Friday, December 5, 2008


By Bruce Landis

PROVIDENCE — Driving your car may take on a new and larger meaning — for your wallet.


To fix its crumbling roads and bridges and rescue the state’s financially challenged public transit system, a draft report made public yesterday says the state should consider charging tolls at the state line on every interstate highway and creating a new tax for each mile a vehicle is driven.

[emerald]

Properly funded and managed trails worth hiking aren't free and the time will come when user levels will be scrutinized and managed on the A.T. if it is to continue to be worth hiking. Both user fees and some kind of permitting system on the A.T. will one day be more widely employed, but I don't know what much of what's been posted has to do with the IAT, except to point the way toward something better.

Those who don't like the way things are done in Canada shouldn't go there.

[taildragger]

Too many rolling couch potatoes. Opening National Parks up to rolling car tourists was a choice the head honchos made years ago and it's coming home to bite them. Can anyone say: Cades Cove Motor Loop in a park with the worst air pollution in the country?? Uh, who's in charge? The solution to reducing crowding is elementary-school simple: Close the roads in the parks. The parks will still be wide open for the masses to use and see, but only on foot.

But then there are the fees with enforcing the rules, and eventually there won't be as large of a constituency or as powerful of a lobby to keep the park open. Eventually it'd get sold off to the highest bidder.

Sorry man, but your world doesn't exist in these times.

Fees suck, but thats why I like NFS. If if a forest can make some money, or at least break even, then thats awesome, and thats how I believe that it should be done. Some do that with fees, others do it with logging. Either way, the park/forest should be able to run itself w/o necessary outside assistance. That would be the 'fair' way.

[Tipi Walter]

But then there are the fees with enforcing the rules, and eventually there won't be as large of a constituency or as powerful of a lobby to keep the park open. Eventually it'd get sold off to the highest bidder.

Regulation=cost more to enforce rules=therefore people don't want to keep a park open?? Don't quite understand your comment.

I'm trying to think of any wilderness areas(which are not subject to powerful lobbies for car traffic or vehicle tourism), that have been sold off. We know cars or roads aren't allowed in the wilderness, and so there must be another powerful lobby trying to increase wilderness acreage and going against the multi-use access constituency.

By shutting out access except on foot(or horseback), do such limits increase the chance of having that land sold off to the highest bidder? I can think of many areas in the southeast, the Cohuttas, the Big Frog, the Citico Creek and Slickrock wilderness, Linville Gorge, Bald River Gorge, the Harpers Creek propsed wilderness, etc, that are stickly closed to everything but foot traffic that are in no danger of being sold off.

[Rockhound]

Regulation=cost more to enforce rules=therefore people don't want to keep a park open?? Don't quite understand your comment.

I'm trying to think of any wilderness areas(which are not subject to powerful lobbies for car traffic or vehicle tourism), that have been sold off. We know cars or roads aren't allowed in the wilderness, and so there must be another powerful lobby trying to increase wilderness acreage and going against the multi-use access constituency.

By shutting out access except on foot(or horseback), do such limits increase the chance of having that land sold off to the highest bidder? I can think of many areas in the southeast, the Cohuttas, the Big Frog, the Citico Creek and Slickrock wilderness, Linville Gorge, Bald River Gorge, the Harpers Creek propsed wilderness, etc, that are stickly closed to everything but foot traffic that are in no danger of being sold off.

might i suggest you go hike there then

[taildragger]

Regulation=cost more to enforce rules=therefore people don't want to keep a park open?? Don't quite understand your comment.

I'm trying to think of any wilderness areas(which are not subject to powerful lobbies for car traffic or vehicle tourism), that have been sold off. We know cars or roads aren't allowed in the wilderness, and so there must be another powerful lobby trying to increase wilderness acreage and going against the multi-use access constituency.

By shutting out access except on foot(or horseback), do such limits increase the chance of having that land sold off to the highest bidder? I can think of many areas in the southeast, the Cohuttas, the Big Frog, the Citico Creek and Slickrock wilderness, Linville Gorge, Bald River Gorge, the Harpers Creek propsed wilderness, etc, that are stickly closed to everything but foot traffic that are in no danger of being sold off.

They have a larger constituency.

Lets take the black mountains. If people stopped visiting them as often, they would be deemed low priority by the gov't. The state would probably insist that the lands be sold off, or allowed logging/mineral rights to be exploited (thus the state can make money off of land that they would otherwise see as vacant and not doing anything).

Enforcement comes from people stopping the use of ATV or ORV's. As a former rock crawler, I can tell you that we can get into to almost any place, just give us a little time. Thats where the costs come in.

And, as in the first part, the fact that the land isn't producing any wealth or anything of economic value to the surrounding towns. That land may likely be sold if it has any worth.

Now, the black mountains do receive a lot of use, I believe fishermen and horse packs outweigh the hikers there, so I don't think that its in any real danger.

I'm too lazy to go any further into this. But I will end on this note:
I do agree that I think a lot of the fee systems are BS. There are certain places like Yosemite, that have such a large infrastructure that I do condone the fees in that the keep the valley in good condition and allow people other than just backpackers, horse packs, etc... to come in. I'd like to see the valley as it was before people came into it, but I don't want to exclude so many other people from seeing it (not just RVers, but climbers would get excluded as well).

And now I'm off to load up my bow and do some huntin' this weekend, maybe I'll get to see that cougar that I've been watching out for.

[WalkingStick75]

Tipi, you got me oxygen is still free. That is unless you have a lung problems, scuba diver, fly in a plane.... yea things like that, they its not free.

I'm not a big fan of having to pay to set up my tent (tarp) but I'm not opposed to paying a small fee to support the trail, whatever trail I hike. If I lived closer to the AT (and I will be someday) then I will give back to the trail and help maintain it with my physical work but for now I will support with a few bucks when I can.

[warren doyle]

No fees - walking in the mountains should always remain free.

[slugger]

No fees - walking in the mountains should always remain free.

While I agree that walking in the mountains should always be free you can't realistically says that there will always be mountains for you to walk on with out monetary support.

I could see putting up a donation box at the start or each new trail clubs section and again at the shelters. maintaining the trail and building shelters and privies are not a free thing and I would happily donate and I walk through/use.

[JAK]

I could be wrong but I think the development of the IAT in Atlantic Canada is part of a new trend where government sees eco-tourism as an industry. Everything today seems to be turning into an industry. It's the dead wrong way to go in my opinion.

[FLETCH6]

A few years ago there was a proposal to have a dedicated fee or tax on hiking gear that would go to hiking trails in the same way the hunters and fishermen pay a tax on there gear. It was called" teaming with wildlife". It died or was killed acording to your definition. You would not know that you were paying this tax because it was on the manufacturing level.