Katherine Hollis
We recently met with staff from Rainier National Park, Olympic National Park and North Cascades National Park about their respective proposed fee increases. National Parks across the country are considering increasing entrance fees, camping, and wilderness permit fee increases.
National Park Director John Jarvis notified park superintendents that they could increase Park fees "after they have actively engaged the public and stakeholders about proposed changes and impacts." Increasing Park fees would help address the $12 billion maintenance backlog the Park system faces nationally. Jarvis’s memo also states that if there is not general public support to raise fees, Parks can choose not to do so.
Some points on user fee increases from our National Parks:
- 80% of fees will be used directly at sites; 20% of fees go into a national budget that supports areas that don’t have entrance fees
- Fee money goes into projects that benefits visitors, including exhibits, trails, roads, and campsite restoration
- Fees at National Parks in WA were last raised in 2006
Other items to note:
-The America the Beautiful National Parks pass will stay at $80/year. This pass allows for unlimited entry to all national parks, and will become even more of a bargain if it’s price is not raised – we encourage the park system to keep the pass at $80
- While we believe that backcountry fees are necessary to pay for upkeep, maintenance, etc., we encourage the Parks to keep overhead/administration fees as low as possible. We encourage our Parks to balance increased fees with increased access.
You can learn more, and submit comments, on proposed fees for both Olympic National Park and Mt. Rainier National Park by visiting the Park Planning website, and use the map to click on the Parks.
Information on proposed Olympic National Park fees and Rainier National Park
Comment period is open through December 31st of this year.
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a disturbing trend in national parks, is the increase in what i refer to as the GLITZ,
1. visitor centers on a new york 5th avenue style, despite selling what can only be referred to as landfill junk, perhaps the book section could be increased?????
2. large increases in the number of electrical sites, decreases in primitive camping, decrease in radio free sites
3. most RVS just want a pad, so why not do that, and keep them in their own RV LOT
4. large increases in biking trails which degrade the environment, both physically and aethtically
this year we have visited, yellowstone, olympic, glacier, sequoia, kings, and yosemtie national parks, and found it difficult to find tent sites, without packing in
i am not against raising the fees, 10 times, but i am for preserving the park in a non-amusement park style
saundra stringer
