Dear HCN,


To add a user-fee note from California: On Mount Shasta, the Shasta-Trinity National Forest is charging climbers $15 each to go above 10,000 feet, plus $5 per day to park at backcountry trailheads. The information officer at the ranger station told me that the fees were being put in place to avoid placing a quota on the number of climbers. He also said the fees would stay in the forest, to be used to build and maintain campgrounds and other recreational facilities.


Perhaps recreationalists should expect to pay for services, especially if other users and contractors of federal resources also pay their way. It's quite another matter for fees to be levied on one group to limit their access (by ability to pay?), and then to use the collected fees to subsidize projects for other groups.


The conclusion many of us came to was that the agency is entrepreneuring, charging new fees because Congress said they could.





Andy Selters


Bishop, California