Gotta Pay Before You Hike

[Mr_Beebo]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/30/grand-canyon-to-charge-hikers-fee-for-rim-to-rim-trek/?intcmp=l...

There is a fee to get into the GC park which has been the norm; now there appears to be a fee to hike as well. I agree the parks need funds to operate, seems like the pot of water just keeps getting warmer and warmer while the frog sleeps.

[Francesca_Knowl]

Leave it to Fox to slant this story as if permits are something new and onerous. They're not, having been required for individual backcountry/overnight hikers at the GC for many years. Typical individual fee is $10.00, though annual frequent-hiker permits are also available. Link to Parks page As already noted, this new program affects only GROUPS of hikers, and is an attempt to limit their impact.

An article in a perhaps more respectable source, the Lansing State Journal, gets it right beginning with its proper headline:
Grand Canyon group trips need permit
That article further notes that groups as big as 150 people have been not uncommon in the past. Such enormous parties will now evidently not be allowed, or at least better controlled. Seems reasonable and even responsible to me.

[down_home]

Trahs, grafetti, nasty toilets well....I can't see any Rvers especially Members of numerous RV groups doing it. Apparently it is the TV raised crowd.

[old_guy]

look how much it costs us tax payers to rescue the climbers on MT Hood in Oregon every year. and it is always in the month of December.

[dahkota]

to be exact:
"Starting Sept. 15, any group taking organized, rim-to-rim or extended day-hiking and running trips in the inner Canyon will have to pay for $175 for a permit."

Note the key word "Organized"

What happened is that a guy "organized" a rim to rim hike and charged people for it.

And, people in general seem to have been born in barns. They leave trash all over the trail with no regard for who has to clean it up. They are too lazy to clean up after themselves.

Don't complain about the government charging fees, complain about the lazy, dirty, people who take advantage of something for nothing that ruin for the rest of us.

[bgum]

Rescue isn't cheap.

[tatest]

The article is talking about a fee for a particular activity, not "to hike" as a general thing. There are already other fee activities (and regulation of traffic) in that park, in other national parks, and there have been for many years. a fee helps in the regulation of activities that need to be regulated to manage the number of people doing it at one time, and cover costs produced.

I've been paying fees to camp for at least 50 years, and don't view that as some sinister expansion of government control or loss of a fundamental human freedom, that I couldn't camp for free like people did when there were only a few thousand visitors a year more than a century ago.

I think you will find even more regulation in the most crowded national parks, e.g. control of traffic in the busiest Yosemite trail areas.

[rk911]

I don't see an problem with this. I suspect the NPS is spending a lot of $ rescuing ill-prepared hikers.

[ed6713]

Someone has to pay to clean up the trash, rescue the fools, etc.
I've always been a fan of user fees for such things. Better, in my opinion, then using general tax dollars. If you want to play, you have to pay.