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National Parks Price Increase $$$$$


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You may have to pay $70 to visit the Grand Canyon and 16 other national parks

CNN) — The National Park Service proposes more than doubling the entrance fees at 17 popular national parks, including Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone, to help pay for infrastructure improvements.
Under the agency's proposal, the entrance fee for a private vehicle would jump to $70 during peak season, from its current rate of $25 to $30.
 
The cost for a motorcycle entering the park could increase to $50, from the current fee of $15 to $25.
 
The cost for people entering the park on foot or on bike could go to $30, up from the current rate of $10 to $15.
 
The cost of the annual pass, which permits entrance into all federal lands and parks, would remain at $80.
 
The proposal would affect the following 17 national parks during the 2018 peak season:
  • Arches
  • Bryce Canyon
  • Canyonlands
  • Denali
  • Glacier
  • Grand Canyon
  • Grand Teton
  • Olympic
  • Sequoia & Kings Canyon
  • Yellowstone
  • Yosemite
  • Zion
  • Acadia
  • Mount Rainier
  • Rocky Mountain
  • Shenandoah
  • Joshua Tree
Peak pricing would affect each park's busiest five months for visitors.
The National Park Service said the increase would help pay for badly needed improvements, including to roads, bridges, campgrounds, waterlines, bathrooms and other visitor services at the parks. The fee hikes could also boost national park revenue by $70 million per year, it said.
"The infrastructure of our national parks is aging and in need of renovation and restoration," Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in a statement.
Of the 417 national park sites, 118 charge an entrance fee.
The National Park service has opened the proposal to public comments for 30 days at its website.
The proposal was blasted by the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonpartisan advocacy group.
"We should not increase fees to such a degree as to make these places -- protected for all Americans to experience -- unaffordable for some families to visit," the group's president and CEO Theresa Pierno said in a statement. "The solution to our parks' repair needs cannot and should not be largely shouldered by its visitors."
 
"The administration just proposed a major cut to the National Park Service budget even as parks struggle with billions of dollars in needed repairs," Pierno said. "If the administration wants to support national parks, it needs to walk the walk and work with Congress to address the maintenance backlog."
On the National Park Service's Facebook page, some commented that the proposal was reasonable since it was going to improve and maintain the parks. Others lamented that it would price working class people out of making trips that they had saved up for.
Entrance fees at several national parks, including Mount Rainer, Grand Teton and Yellowstone, went up in 2015 to their current price.
Those fee increases didn't seem to deter visitors. In 2016, National Park Services received a record-breaking 331 million visits, which marked a 7.7% increase over 2015. It was the park service's third consecutive all-time attendance record.
 
Most popular National Parks in 2016 (59 total)
Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- 11,312,786 million visitors
Grand Canyon National Park -- 5,969,811
Yosemite National Park -- 5,028,868
Rocky Mountain National Park -- 4,517,585
Zion National Park -- 4,295,127
Yellowstone National Park -- 4,257,177
Olympic National Park -- 3,390,221
Acadia National Park -- 3,303,393
Grand Teton National Park -- 3,270,076
Glacier National Park -- 2,946,681

No mention in this article about the Senior Pass.

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I'm a huge National Parks fan and I think this is unfortunate but not unreasonable. Personally, I think the federal government should cut back on a bunch of other things and use the money to put the national parks in tip top shape, but I also know that's not going to happen. I read this:

The proposal was blasted by the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonpartisan advocacy group.  "We should not increase fees to such a degree as to make these places -- protected for all Americans to experience -- unaffordable for some families to visit," the group's president and CEO Theresa Pierno said in a statement. "The solution to our parks' repair needs cannot and should not be largely shouldered by its visitors."
 
but then I think of the huge amounts of money a lot of families pay to go to Disney  and other vacation destinations, professional and college sporting events, etc. and I think that many can probably afford $70 per vehicle if they wanted to.  Especially since these are mostly or all destination parks that one builds a vacation around.  Of this list, I've only been to Acadia and would love to go to the others someday so I better start saving my dollars. 
 
 
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24 minutes ago, Seals said:

Especially since these are mostly or all destination parks that one builds a vacation around.

Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon have a lot of local visitors. Olympic fills a similar niche in Washington. I know if it was $70 to enter plus the nightly camping fee it would have impacted us when we lived in NorCal. I could see this affecting younger families that might make a couple of spur of the moment weekend camping trips a year.  It seems to me the  $70 for seven days is like they want to push people into the annual pass.

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The National Parks have gotten very busy, over the past several years... the wear and tear is expensive.  For us, we're planning a trip to the SW at the end of April; we'll hit three NPs (Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon).  We'll buy a annual pass for that trip.  Our daughter was in the 4th grade last year, so we got to take advantage of the free annual pass for fourth graders (and their family); unfortunately, I think we only hit one park (Badlands) where we could use it.  Mt. Rushmore had a "parking fee" of $10, not an entrance fee.  Oh...wait, we also used it at Rocky Mountain National :) 

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3 hours ago, Travisma said:

  

Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- 11,312,786 million visitors
Grand Canyon National Park -- 5,969,811
Yosemite National Park -- 5,028,868
Rocky Mountain National Park -- 4,517,585
Zion National Park -- 4,295,127
Yellowstone National Park -- 4,257,177
Olympic National Park -- 3,390,221
Acadia National Park -- 3,303,393
Grand Teton National Park -- 3,270,076
Glacier National Park -- 2,946,681

No mention in this article about the Senior Pass.

Hmm...Smoke Mountains NP.  That's only 3 hours from us.  Maybe we should visit it sometime, instead of driving across the country :rolleyes::lol:

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52 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

Hmm...Smoke Mountains NP.  That's only 3 hours from us.  Maybe we should visit it sometime, instead of driving across the country :rolleyes::lol:

It's a bit longer for us but in the 20+ years we've lived in NC we have never made a trip of any type to SMNP. We had talked about a day trip the last time we were in the southern portion of the Blue Ridge Pkwy but decided to hike to Mt Pisgah instead. In fact it has no and never will be an entrance fee as that was a condition of the donation of the land to the US government.

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I LOVE Smoky Mountain National Park.  We always enjoy going there.  That said, Nacole's trip to Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce will be fantastic.  We really like going there.  A couple of years ago we hit Grand Canyon (for the fourth time), along with Arches and Canyonlands in Moab, along with Mesa Verde in Colorado.  In prior years we hit Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion.  For all of those trips we purchased the annual pass.  Works well.

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1 hour ago, keith_h said:

 . In fact it has no and never will be an entrance fee as that was a condition of the donation of the land to the US government.

Good to know!!  Might be why it's #1 ;)

1 hour ago, djsamuel said:

I LOVE Smoky Mountain National Park.  We always enjoy going there.  That said, Nacole's trip to Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce will be fantastic.  We really like going there.  A couple of years ago we hit Grand Canyon (for the fourth time), along with Arches and Canyonlands in Moab, along with Mesa Verde in Colorado.  In prior years we hit Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion.  For all of those trips we purchased the annual pass.  Works well.

I am super excited!!  I've wanted to see Zion, for a few years now.  We're actually giving up two of the trips we planned to the Fort next year (we still have two left, lol) to make this trek.  After visiting a couple NPs earlier this year, I've been reminded just how much I love being out there.  Growing up, I was in the mountains a lot.  Our youngest will be 6 (gulp!) in a few weeks...so he's finally getting big enough to handle a few hikes.  Plus with Tom's bad back, I don't feel as guilty, leaving them back at the CG if I want to hike on my own ^_^

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I don't have a problem with this, the annual car pass for State Parks here is $60 per car.

My guess is that most will opt to get the Annual Pass for 80, especially if they live nearby, or if it is part of a trip.

The NPS has been underfunded for decades with a huge backlog of needed maintenance. It hasn't helped that they keep getting stuck with new "National Monuments" every couple of years that also need staffing and maintenance.  :(

 

 

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