Snow in the PNW 20-21: We may have Corona but Corona doesn't have us!

[altasnob]

Why has MRNP been so active in trying to keep people out of the park?

To be clear, MRNP is not anti-backcountry skier. Muir snowfield might be the #1 backcountry spot in the US by numbers. This was just a pissing match between the park and Crystal/USFS. National Park's mission is more preservation where as USFS is still in the business of trying to make money from logging, mining, and leasing ski areas. They are different entities.

[volklpowdermaniac]

Hope its been a good summer of hikes, bikes and brown pow, hero dirt is back, but jonesing again for the white.
"Snow in the PNW 21-22: Bitching about Crystal and sometimes we ski"

[Bobcat Sig]

To be clear, MRNP is not anti-backcountry skier. Muir snowfield might be the #1 backcountry spot in the US by numbers. This was just a pissing match between the park and Crystal/USFS. National Park's mission is more preservation where as USFS is still in the business of trying to make money from logging, mining, and leasing ski areas. They are different entities.

MRNP may be anti-skier, but what I'm reading here leads me to think otherwise. As for the login and the USFS; you sure about that? Around here, there's so little, if any, logging in the National Forests anymore.

[ptavv]

To be clear, MRNP is not anti-backcountry skier. Muir snowfield might be the #1 backcountry spot in the US by numbers. This was just a pissing match between the park and Crystal/USFS. National Park's mission is more preservation where as USFS is still in the business of trying to make money from logging, mining, and leasing ski areas. They are different entities.

MRNP has long had an attitude of maximizing revenue capture that isn't present in lots of other parks. I think the Park leadership sees people entering the park on skis from surrounding USFS as owing an entrance fee (which I think is even technically accurate) that is rarely paid and this leads them to a bunch of attempts at access restriction since they have a sense that one must pay to use the park (regardless of the many who have annual passes or lifetime passes or whatever).

[altasnob]

How can a park charge entrance fees for someone hiking, or hiking with skis on their feet, from a parking lot outside a park? When I go hiking from White Pass to Crystal on the PCT, I pass through MRNP and don't pay an entrance fee. Same for Grand Park via the back door. Lots of other examples. As far as I now, you only pay fees when you drive into parks (not sure if you are riding your bike in on the roads). If you are entering a park via trails (or off trail) by foot, skis, snowshoes, you don't have to pay.

MRNP didn't like the idea of a private company being able to waltz anyone up mountain peaks where they can use gravity to enter the park. Not arguing I agree with MRNP's attitude (because resistance is futile), but I can totally see why they had concerns with the emerging sport of sidecountry backcountry skiers. I am sure GTNP also had concerns too during this same era.

Of all national parks, MRNP might be the closest to the largest population center. They have a tough job. If MRNP is so focused on making money via fees they should start charging $20 per winter entrance to Paradise, and not honor annual passes in the winter. Myself, and pretty much every backcountry user, would gladly pay that if it meant the road was more consistently plowed and they kept the downhill gate open later than 4:30 pm in the winter.

[ptavv]

How can a park charge entrance fees for someone hiking, or hiking with skis on their feet, from a parking lot outside a park? When I go hiking from White Pass to Crystal on the PCT, I pass through MRNP and don't pay an entrance fee. Same for Grand Park via the back door. Lots of other examples. As far as I now, you only pay fees when you drive into parks (not sure if you are riding your bike in on the roads). If you are entering a park via trails (or off trail) by foot, skis, snowshoes, you don't have to pay.

You're definitely supposed to be paying a fee when you do these things. This is my point. Your last sentence is categorically wrong, just because you don't pass an entrance gate or a fee station doesn't mean you're not supposed to pay.

MRNP didn't like the idea of a private company being able to waltz anyone up mountain peaks where they can use gravity to enter the park. Not arguing I agree with MRNP's attitude (because resistance is futile), but I can totally see why they had concerns with the emerging sport of sidecountry backcountry skiers. I am sure GTNP also had concerns too during this same era.

Of all national parks, MRNP might be the closest to the largest population center. They have a tough job. If MRNP is so focused on making money via fees they should start charging $20 per winter entrance to Paradise, and not honor annual passes in the winter. Myself, and pretty much every backcountry user, would gladly pay that if it meant the road was more consistently plowed and they kept the downhill gate open later than 4:30 pm in the winter.

No national park can just decide not to honor the interagency annual passes. All of the interagency passes and multi-park passes are established and regulated by federal legislation. Different parks can set different rates for their passes but they get a lot of pressure from congresscritters when they raise the prices too much. A few years ago the parks proposed increasing their fees a lot (2-3x) and it created an epic shit storm and ultimately wasn't allowed to happen.

Most parks have "per person" fees that people are supposed to paid when entering the park on foot, by bicycle, by raft, etc. They've obviously challenging-to-impossible to collect or enforce along backcountry boundaries and rely almost entirely on the honor system (some parks manage to collect it on river-goers pretty reliably). I've never heard an argument that users don't owe those fees if they enter on skis from adjacent land, no matter how they got to it.

[Bobcat Sig]

You're definitely supposed to be paying a fee when you do these things. This is my point. Your last sentence is categorically wrong, just because you don't pass an entrance gate or a fee station doesn't mean you're not supposed to pay.



No national park can just decide not to honor the interagency annual passes. All of the interagency passes and multi-park passes are established and regulated by federal legislation. Different parks can set different rates for their passes but they get a lot of pressure from congresscritters when they raise the prices too much. A few years ago the parks proposed increasing their fees a lot (2-3x) and it created an epic shit storm and ultimately wasn't allowed to happen.

Most parks have "per person" fees that people are supposed to paid when entering the park on foot, by bicycle, by raft, etc. They've obviously challenging-to-impossible to collect or enforce along backcountry boundaries and rely almost entirely on the honor system (some parks manage to collect it on river-goers pretty reliably). I've never heard an argument that users don't owe those fees if they enter on skis from adjacent land, no matter how they got to it.

So all the drivers that pass through YNP - on a road - as the travel south from Big Sky to West Yellowstone, are supposed to pay a park entrance fee?

[ptavv]

So all the drivers that pass through YNP - on a road - as the travel south from Big Sky to West Yellowstone, are supposed to pay a park entrance fee?

I'm not sure how there's an applicable analogy between someone using a road (but not the natural resources of a park) and someone who is using the park (but not a built road).

[altasnob]

MRNP has long had an attitude of maximizing revenue capture that isn't present in lots of other parks.

Other than this Crystal thing that happened 20 years ago, are there any other examples? The Crystal thing seemed less about potential entrance fee revenue and more about control.

You might be right about all users are supposed to pay the entrance fee, even if entering via foot on trail. It's somewhat of a moot point as most local hikers and backcountry skiers have the annual pass that doubles as a NW Forest Pass. It seems to me Rainier makes no effort to ensure people who are hiking or skiing from outside of the park, into the park, are paying their fee (Chinook Pass, Grand Park, and Crystal are the main areas where this would occur). I don't know how they would go about trying to enforce that because you don't need the pass to park outside the park.

Backcountry skiers are a minuscule portion of visitors to the park. And most have the annual pass. The real revenue generators are the looky loos in the Summer and the sledders in the Winter.

[ptavv]

I don't think the Crystal thing was about trying to extract money from those backcountry users, but about the attitude that they shouldn't be permitted because they are freeloading. I think that attitude is a consequence of park leadership's view that the park is something which shall not be used without paying for it. This has been present in their roll out of camping reservations, the increases in climbing permit fees, the way they handled the breakup of RMI's guided climbing monopoly, the proposed fee increases in 2017/18. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's a feeling I've had with numerous interactions with MRNP rangers, it's always just seemed like I was justifying myself to them, rather than how it has felt to me at many other NPs where they were there to enable access rather than police it.

I think the difference between whether someone ought to pay and whether it's feasible to enforce that they pay is far from moot. Most USFS land that has fees associated with it (whether for access or camping or whatever) has minimal enforcement (basically just ticketing at trailheads), yet it's still widely acknowledged that it's expected and many users pay the fees. Ultimately those fees help preserve and maintain the recreational spaces we have and forestall more of the land being industrialized to pay for its upkeep (or just allowed to fall further into decrepitude)

[altasnob]

The proposed fee increase in 2017/18 was for both Rainier and Oly, so it wasn't just Rainier's idea. Oly is a top 10 most visited, Rainier a top 20, and both are next to 4 million+ people and growing, so I can see rangers being a little more gruff than in other parks. Both parks are also 100% wilderness, other than the roads and lodges. True for some other parks, but not all. So that may play a factor in attitude. More people just means more idiots they have to deal with.

[PNWbrit]

I don't think the Crystal thing was about trying to extract money from those backcountry users, but about the attitude that they shouldn't be permitted because they are freeloading. I think that attitude is a consequence of park leadership's view that the park is something which shall not be used without paying for it. This has been present in their roll out of camping reservations, the increases in climbing permit fees, the way they handled the breakup of RMI's guided climbing monopoly, the proposed fee increases in 2017/18. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's a feeling I've had with numerous interactions with MRNP rangers, it's always just seemed like I was justifying myself to them, rather than how it has felt to me at many other NPs where they were there to enable access rather than police it.

I think the difference between whether someone ought to pay and whether it's feasible to enforce that they pay is far from moot. Most USFS land that has fees associated with it (whether for access or camping or whatever) has minimal enforcement (basically just ticketing at trailheads), yet it's still widely acknowledged that it's expected and many users pay the fees. Ultimately those fees help preserve and maintain the recreational spaces we have and forestall more of the land being industrialized to pay for its upkeep (or just allowed to fall further into decrepitude)

I noticed that the Rangers at Rainier changed their attitude to the public after Margaret Anderson was shot and killed in 2012(?).

Somewhat understandably.

Rather than all the speculation (>Altasnob) about the earlier disagreement regarding the boundary issue you could just ask Buster.

[Buster Highmen]

Regarding Uberagua's attitude toward skiing, he absolutely said over the phone "...I think skiing is bad for the park...".
Full stop.

Obviously that's not a publicly confessed policy, but it's been expressed via harassment of skiers near Sunrise. I'm not the only person who has experienced the hostility from the rangers.

Another fact is that the previous owners had offered to give MRNP an add on fee option to lift tickets which MRNP could harvest.

MRNP turned that down.

Draw your own conclusions. This can lead to wild hypothesis. Have at it.

There may be liability issues or federal to private liaison issues which could probably be worked out.

[river59]

They should have just kept walking until they got the Blue Spruce Saloon in Packwood.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...anger-station/

No doubt, especially if it was Wii bowling or taco night! Personally, I always preferred cliff jumpers or cruisers for eats and the spruce for its charming ambience.

[Zeedashbo]

Anyone remember when MRNP banned snowboards?

Sent from my SM-G973U1 using TGR Forums mobile app

[altasnob]

What's wrong with that?

[Ed el Loco]

No doubt, especially if it was Wii bowling or taco night! Personally, I always preferred cliff jumpers or cruisers for eats and the spruce for its charming ambience.

Was cliff jumpers still Doobies in2010? Crazy story.

[Bobcat Sig]

I'm not sure how there's an applicable analogy between someone using a road (but not the natural resources of a park) and someone who is using the park (but not a built road).

entering is entering, no? My example is such that thousands of people drive between Big Sky and West Yellowstone, and enter in, and transition through, National Parklands. And with it, many skiers use the said road (or highway, if we're being accurate) to access backcountry ski terrain. Shouldn't they also pay a park fee?

Mainly, this MRNP thing about park fees and entering park borders seems to be totally regional.

[chaka]

not to break up the riveting discussion of land access here's a cool article on the history of travel up and over snoq pass.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...-the-cascades/

[nickwm21]

Thanks for posting that article.

Question long time i90 travelers…

Prior to the completion of the Avy bridges in that Keechelus zone… How often did the highway actually get buried in a slide?



Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[The AD]

I think the difference between whether someone ought to pay and whether it's feasible to enforce that they pay is far from moot. Most USFS land that has fees associated with it (whether for access or camping or whatever) has minimal enforcement (basically just ticketing at trailheads), yet it's still widely acknowledged that it's expected and many users pay the fees. Ultimately those fees help preserve and maintain the recreational spaces we have and forestall more of the land being industrialized to pay for its upkeep (or just allowed to fall further into decrepitude)

I agree. It would be fairly simple for MRNP to instate a fee system like the USFS does with their recreation passes. Allow users to either buy a day pass or a full season pass. If the price isn't too high I think most people would pay even if enforcement is basically nil.

[abraham]

For anyone who didn't get the email, 3 Wednesdays this month.

[goCougs]

Good look! While we're on the topic, anyone know of other low-cost avy education in the area?

I'll throw out the Pettigrew foundation (https://www.pettigrewfoundation.org/), but it looks like they may be short on funding this year

[Buster Highmen]

I agree. It would be fairly simple for MRNP to instate a fee system like the USFS does with their recreation passes. Allow users to either buy a day pass or a full season pass. If the price isn't too high I think most people would pay even if enforcement is basically nil.

I thought I'd covered that.

Oh well.

[The AD]

I thought I'd covered that.

Oh well.

You did, but maybe their tune would be different now with the other agencies charging similar fees. I'm sure the USFS is pulling in lots of money through the Northwest Forest Pass.