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Rift Zone
11-03-2007, 12:04
I understand that the IAT shelters in Canada require a usage fee... Anyone know what the cost of thru-hiking it would turn out to be? (for esitmated shelter use alone)

Tipi Walter
11-03-2007, 13:16
Another good reason not to use shelters.

Frolicking Dinosaurs
11-03-2007, 13:42
I believe shelter use is required on parts of the IAT in Newfoundland and Quebec (mainly inside established parks similar to the US GSMNP) I've emailed someone from the IAT's equivilent to the ATC and asked them to join us so that accurate and up-to-date info will be available regarding this trail and its associated services.

gsingjane
11-03-2007, 17:10
The Ice Age Trail (in Wisconsin) rules state that you must either stay in shelters or tent at shelter areas, and either way you have to pay. The website was very insistent that all users had to reserve and pay; however, using the reservation system was a nightmare. The one upside was that when we made better time than we'd anticipated (it's an easy trail) they let us transfer our reservation from one site to another, even though the website says that's not allowed. A 4-night hike cost me $60.

Jane in CT

Tipi Walter
11-03-2007, 20:24
Pay to backpack? People actually participate in such a program? Let's herd the non-paying anti-shelterists in a straight line with no deviation allowed and like Ed Abbey said, we'll all have fun in the woods but in a clockwise direction ONLY.

You'd think in a place so far north that the park officials would let people fend for themselves without interference from the Nanny State. I guess a backpacker sleeping somewhere without authorization will awaken the litigious sleeping giant that is Park Policy so beware all future hikers! You'd better bone up on the statute and footnoted legalese before even laying out your gear. Meanwhile the millioneth noisy jet passes overhead and the IAT is socked in an all-day acid rain. Wait! There's an unauthorized hiker who hasn't paid his fee sneeking thru an adjacent clearcut trying to access the Ice Age Trail!

Back to reality: gsingjane, could you spell out their reasons for charging? What was your experience? Would you do it again?

Sly
11-03-2007, 20:28
The Ice Age Trail (in Wisconsin) rules state that you must either stay in shelters or tent at shelter areas, and either way you have to pay.... A 4-night hike cost me $60.

Jane in CT

$60 for you alone? In Glacier, it's $5 per person, per night in the backcountry. I don't mind paying, it's an awesome park.

Sly
11-03-2007, 20:30
LOL.. BTW, I think this is supposed to be the International Appalachian Trail forum, not the Ice Age Trail.

Tipi Walter
11-03-2007, 20:37
$60 for you alone? In Glacier, it's $5 per person, per night in the backcountry. I don't mind paying, it's an awesome park.

Imagine if the AT charged 5 dollars a night? It'd cost $750 just for a thru-hike permit. I thought Glacier belonged to all of us, so why do we have to pay to use it? How much does it cost to drive the Going to the Sun road thru the park? What's the name of that road?

Frosty
11-03-2007, 21:24
Pay to backpack? People actually participate in such a program? Let's herd the non-paying anti-shelterists in a straight line with no deviation allowed and like Ed Abbey said, we'll all have fun in the woods but in a clockwise direction ONLY.Snowmobilers pay a fortune in registration fees for their sport, as do hunters. In fact, hikers are about the only group that expects to government to set aside land for their use and have trails but expect the general fund to pay for it.

To me, use fees make sense.

But that, I'm sure, is a minority opinion.

Sly
11-03-2007, 22:29
Imagine if the AT charged 5 dollars a night? It'd cost $750 just for a thru-hike permit. I thought Glacier belonged to all of us, so why do we have to pay to use it? How much does it cost to drive the Going to the Sun road thru the park? What's the name of that road?

Going Into the Sun Road! I think it costs $25 per car. If all the AT was like Glacier, it would be worth the $750...

You're going to pay one way or another. Either through taxes or fees. There's infrastructure in NP's, paid trail crews, plowing etc...The AT is a bargin thanks largely to the volunteerism.

WalkingStick75
11-03-2007, 23:36
IAT shelters cost $20.00 per person per night, $10.00 for camping and lean-tos. Also reservations must be made. OR you can buy a "passport" which gives you access to all the sherlters etc and I don't "think" they require reservations.
I have been trying to do some pre-planning to thru hike the IAT in 2009 information is hard to come by.

Appalachian Tater
11-04-2007, 13:11
Canada ought to allow U.S. citizens to use their parks for free just to be nice, eh.

Dakota Dan
11-04-2007, 14:31
...If all the AT was like Glacier, it would be worth the $750...

Or more! The trouble with fees/registration when hiking, is finding the place, or the proper time, to pay them.

Frolicking Dinosaurs
11-04-2007, 22:59
I wrote to the Contact email for the IAT about your question:
Hi Renee,
To answer the question about shelters on the IAT, I believe there are some in Quebec, but there currently aren't any in New Brunswick or Newfoundland. Newfoundland's IAT is still under development. There are plans to build shelters, but we're not there yet.

If the questions don't come too fast and furious, I can answer questions about the IAT in Newfoundland.

A contact person for Quebec is Eric Chouinard ([email protected]).
For Maine, and the IAT overall, contact Dick Anderson ([email protected]).
As for New Brunswick, I don't have contact info at the moment.

Paul Wylezol ([email protected])

Chairperson
IATNL

Rift Zone
11-04-2007, 23:13
To me, use fees make sense.Me too... To a degree.
IAT shelters cost $20.00 per person per night, $10.00 for camping and lean-tos.But that is just plain rape.

OR you can buy a "passport" which gives you access to all the sherltersAny idea of how much they cost?
I wrote to the Contact email for the IAT about your question:Greatly appreciated!

WalkingStick75
11-04-2007, 23:36
I have been lookng for the passport costs and can't seam to fnd it right now but I think it was around $200.00 bucks. The benifit of the passport is that you don't need reservations. I was shocked at this too after all the trips on the AT and no fees, well thats not really true. Motels, Green Mountians, Whtie Mountians, a whole bunch of hostels and my membership with the ATC.
So on second thought I really don't mind paying a little to support areas to hike. The IATC only charged me $10.00 for my membership which I gladly paid to support the trail.

rlharris
11-05-2007, 13:55
For day hikers and section hikers in New Hampshire, many of parking areas at the trail heads in the White Mountain National Forest have a fee for parking. One can pay by the day or purchase weekly or season permits (or if one is an old codger like me) obtain a "Golden Age Passport" which entitles the bearer to park for free.

Many of us who would rather "live free" (remember the state motto), don't like for the NFS to charge for what we think is ours. :)

ScottP
11-07-2007, 12:52
A bit off topic, but some info about the ice age trail

"One of the virtues of the Ice Age Trail is its involvement with the diverse communities along its route. It was designed to connect communities, not avoid them. In fact, approximately 57% of Wisconsin residents live within 20 miles of the Trail. The Ice Age Trail was also designed very specifically to preserve and protect Wisconsin’s cultural and glacial heritage."

Knowing the above, it makes sense (for private property/ community relations reasons) for haing designated camping sites with fees on the ice age trail.

emerald
11-07-2007, 13:54
At first, when I saw your post, I thought, okay, another IAT:rolleyes: post and someone else whining about fees.:rolleyes:

You posted some facts I find quite interesting and I'm glad you did. Thank you.:)

gsingjane
11-07-2007, 15:17
It is hard to say about the fees, I do understand the idea behind them (that you pay one way or the other) and as a backpacker, or just a citizen in general, I'm not childish enough to expect to get something for nothing. The issue about the IAT (and this is the WI one) is that the state has outsourced the function to a company called ReserveAmerica, which makes reservations all over the country for different parks and campgrounds, and they do not have the proper information to actually do backpacking reservations. I cannot tell you how many phone calls and emails it took to get the whole thing straightened out, and then as it was it didn't really work out well. The system is set up for car campers and doesn't accommodate backpackers really at all... their database didn't have the shelters in it, so I had to work backwards from the maps and sort of a trial and error process with existing car sites. We had to readjust our trip plans again and again, because I would make the first couple of reservations, then find out the next place was booked, and then we'd have to start all over again (the customer service rep was about ready to hunt me down and shoot me by the end of it).

The other thing about the "pay for stay" system is that you get totally locked in to doing a certain number of miles, and only a certain number of miles, a day. You have a reservation at "North Unit Shelter #3" for Thursday night, and if you don't wind up making it, or overshoot it, then what do you do? The IAT turned out to be a really easy trail compared to the AT, and we made 15-20 miles a day easily (we're not that good of hikers, really), so we "wasted" our last night's reservation by just moving on and away from the IAT altogether.

Finally, and I'm hopeful this isn't true of the whole IAT, the shelters were absolute PITS. Disgusting, dank, dark cinderblock huts with dirt floors, one of which was stuffed with used toilet paper when we got there. For the price we had thought things would be pretty deluxe, and it sure was disheartening to see how degraded they were. Since we weren't staying in them anyway I know it shouldn't have mattered, but honestly they looked like where "America's Most Wanted" would be set in the near future, if not that very night.

Especially if you are tenting, it seems to me it would make tremendously more sense to just pay a set user fee per day and then just stay where you wind up, just like you do on the AT. We also saw virtually no other backpackers during our entire trip, so if the aim is to apportion scarce space, perhaps that isn't so much of a problem as is thought.

Would I do it again Tipi? Hmmm, hard to say. I have to say, we really, really appreciated the ease of use of the AT when we came back to it. In general, the IAT is very cool and interesting, and it certainly was an experience to plan and execute a hike on a trail that has an entirely different paradigm. But in general, there's really got to be a better way.

Jane in CT

weary
11-07-2007, 16:07
...The AT is a bargin thanks largely to the volunteerism.
But it all costs money. MATC has to spend $200,000 a year, most of it raised through donations from volunteers like us, to keep the trail open and protected. The money funds a trail crew, six caretakers and ridgerunners, a part time staff person, and general costs. You can help. Just open www.matc.org and make a contribution. It will help keep walking in Maine free.

The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust will be sending out its biannual donation letters in a couple of weeks. WE presently are seeking $500,000 so we will have a kitty to buy options when our negotiations with land owners bear fruit. Our vision is the protection of 85,000 acres of mountains and mountain valleys in the high peaks region surrounding Saddleback. The initial half million will help keep the land trust alive, give us credibility in our negotiations, and provide seed money for the major fund-raising that will have to follow.

Trail building and protection isn't cheap. But the alternative is the gradual loss of the wildness that makes the Maine section of the trail special.

Beat the crowds. Just open www.matlt.org and contribute.

Weary, MATLT president.

emerald
11-07-2007, 16:12
So, really, what does anything related to the NST in Wisconsin (http://www.iceagetrail.org/) have to do with this thread? Maybe I'm beginning to regret suggesting an IAT forum.:(

Sly
11-07-2007, 16:16
So, really, what does anything related to the NST in Wisconsin (http://www.iceagetrail.org/) have to do with this thread? Maybe I'm beginning to regret suggesting an IAT forum.:(

I can see the confusion but instead of IAT, which some people are confusing with Ice Age Trail, it needs to be renamed as International Appalachian Trail

gsingjane
11-07-2007, 20:00
I'm sorry, I guess I shouldn't have even brought up the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin, I just thought the experience might be somewhat relevant to another trail system that requires shelter reservations and payment and point out some of the possible pitfalls with same. I am sorry it was OT and wish you luck in finding the information you seek!

Jane in CT

emerald
11-08-2007, 20:13
Don't sweat it. Your post was as you said somewhat relevant.

I can't see why anyone who genuinely wants to hike a trail anywhere would be detered by fees. Such a person should find another place to hike rather than complain.

It would seem to me places which charge fees are places were one can and should expect better facilities and a better experience generally unless of course someone gets bent out of shape by fees and there's a simple remedy for that as I said before.

We will accumulate International AT information in time I'm sure.

Tipi Walter
11-08-2007, 20:49
Don't sweat it. Your post was as you said somewhat relevant.

I can't see why anyone who genuinely wants to hike a trail anywhere would be detered by fees. Such a person should find another place to hike rather than complain.

It would seem to me places which charge fees are places were one can and should expect better facilities and a better experience generally unless of course someone gets bent out of shape by fees and there's a simple remedy for that as I said before.

We will accumulate International AT information in time I'm sure.

So, why not charge $5 per night on the AT? If it's such a great idea, why not let the AT be the first long trail to require nightly fees and user permits?

WalkingStick75
11-08-2007, 21:14
TIPI.. I think the AT is unique because it is federally protected and I think even some funding. Might be mistaken on the funding part but it is funded by the ATC, local clubs, corporate partnerships etc.
In the few spots that I did have to pay a caretaker it didn't bother me at all and if it were necessary to save the trail I would pay nightly but I don't think that will be an issue any time soon. Well, at least as long as we continue to support the trail.
Everyone needs to remember, nothing is free!

MOWGLI
11-08-2007, 21:16
TIPI.. I think the AT is unique because it is federally protected and I think even some funding. Might be mistaken on the funding part...

No, you are not mistaken. Considerable federal funding was utilized to acquire lands for the trail corridor. Hopefully the Land & Water Conservation Fund will get fully funded down the road. That is a broken campaign promise from Bush 43.

shelterbuilder
11-08-2007, 21:19
So, why not charge $5 per night on the AT? If it's such a great idea, why not let the AT be the first long trail to require nightly fees and user permits?

Charging a fee will require the NPS and/or ATC to hire more staff to handle both paperwork and enforcement. I can guarantee that the fee will be a lot more than $5 per night!:eek:

weary
11-08-2007, 22:23
So, why not charge $5 per night on the AT? If it's such a great idea, why not let the AT be the first long trail to require nightly fees and user permits?
Among many other reasons, collecting the fees on a trail with as many access points as the AT would cost 10 times more than it would bring in. It would require an army of collectors.

Tipi Walter
11-08-2007, 23:30
Backpacking and human-powered foot travel is all about spontaneity and freedom, take away these two attributes by charging a nightly fee and requiring user permits and we'll all become impotent dayhikers and sightseeing tourists. I know eventually every square inch of this country will be developed or paved over, but before that happens backpackers and hikers will help participate in the taming of the wilderness by agreeing to pay fees to camp and permits to walk.

As a dim vestige of the old mountain men, my kind will be a footnote in the history books of government land control and private corporate land aquisition.

People talk about the high cost of maintaining wilderness and yet wilderness is mandated to be a place where there is little or no sign of man's permanent presence. How much then could it cost to leave a place alone? A good corollary are car drivers. In North Carolina and Tennessee we pay taxes for road use and gas but there is no daily charge to drive unlimited miles on 99% of the highways. If the state of Tennessee mandated daily tolls on all roads, people would riot. I just don't understand why backpackers don't feel the same.

I can hear future conversations: "I think I'll go out and live in the woods for a couple of weeks." "Sounds great but I hope you have an extra $300 for the fees."

WalkingStick75
11-10-2007, 22:47
I think we can all agree that no matter what the trail if a fee is charged collection would almost have to be voluntary. Everyone just needs to support our trails to their own ability. For some it is time and labor others by opening up their check book.

garyhebert
12-05-2008, 10:59
I'm not opposed to SMALL fees or an annual statewide or all national parks etc pass. I love snowmobiling in VT, NH, ME; But if hiking costs became like annual snowmobile trail pass fees ($100/sled AFTER $22 registration for VT) that would seem unfair. We do subsidize parks with our taxes (and we should!). After that SMALL parking fees etc seem reasonable. As does voluntary support of clubs, etc who maintain trails and advocate for us. Lately I've been hiking lots and all over new england. I'd hate to have to pay big fees in every state when I merely dabble here and there. I wouldn't mind paying an annual fee to hike the AT or the LT covering all fees etc since I'm taking advantage of lots of resources & hidden efforts that make that possible. But that's me. I bet many thru hikers would not think it's right to pay say $200 to thru hike the AT any more than they'd wanna pay $5 or $10 every day hike or weekend they went out to hike. I'd rather pay it in taxes and hike as much as i want, sorta like using the freeway (though some tolls help cover the costs-imagine if you had to cover the entire cost with tolls!)

Rockhound
12-05-2008, 11:17
paying to hike certain trails, (perhaps even the AT) is perfectly logical and fair. charge those who would use our trails and parklands for recreational purposes a reasonable fee to raise revenue to protect those lands from mining, logging and development.

Tipi Walter
12-05-2008, 11:42
TIPI..
Everyone needs to remember, nothing is free!

Uh, how about oxygen? Eventually, with vast areas covered in air pollution, I guess only the rich will have clean purified air to breath in houses outfitted with fancy, expensive air cleaners. For the last 200,000 years of modern human existence, we lived on the land like we breathed the air, for free. While it's true tribal groups fought over territory and huntings lands, a great percentage of land was available for roaming and free living(just had to watch out for the grizzlies).

We've made a human choice to over-populate the country(and the world), and so we sit around and actually contemplate paying money to sleep in tents in the wild lands surrounded by tamed lands covered in sprawl, highways and millions of other people. How times have changed. Wouldn't the solution be a reduction in our numbers instead of queueing up(form a line, buddy)to pay a nightly fee and get a permit?


paying to hike certain trails, (perhaps even the AT) is perfectly logical and fair. charge those who would use our trails and parklands for recreational purposes a reasonable fee to raise revenue to protect those lands from mining, logging and development.

So, would you therefore like to see a nightly tent fee on the AT? How much? How about a flat one thousand dollar fee(with the necessary paperwork and permits)per one thruhike? Makes sense. And one more thing, how about listing every campsite you'll be staying at during your thruhike? Get a map, get a data book, get out the calendar, and have fun. Welcome to 21st Century Backpacking.

Rockhound
12-05-2008, 11:58
no but perhaps an honor system where you fill in your info and deposit the fee along with a copy of the permit into a lockbox. allow ridgeunners/rangers the authority to ticket those without permits making it pointless not to drop the $5 or $10 or whatever in the box at the begining. have these stations set up at each end of GSMNP, SNP, the Whites etc.... sure there will be those who try to avoid paying, and some will get away with it. such is life. overall i think you're making it out to be mission impossible. when you start looking at all the ways something can get done rather than all the ways something can't get done I think you will find you get more done.

Rockhound
12-05-2008, 12:12
Uh, how about oxygen? Eventually, with vast areas covered in air pollution, I guess only the rich will have clean purified air to breath in houses outfitted with fancy, expensive air cleaners. For the last 200,000 years of modern human existence, we lived on the land like we breathed the air, for free. While it's true tribal groups fought over territory and huntings lands, a great percentage of land was available for roaming and free living(just had to watch out for the grizzlies).

We've made a human choice to over-populate the country(and the world), and so we sit around and actually contemplate paying money to sleep in tents in the wild lands surrounded by tamed lands covered in sprawl, highways and millions of other people. How times have changed. Wouldn't the solution be a reduction in our numbers instead of queueing up(form a line, buddy)to pay a nightly fee and get a permit?



So, would you therefore like to see a nightly tent fee on the AT? How much? How about a flat one thousand dollar fee(with the necessary paperwork and permits)per one thruhike? Makes sense. And one more thing, how about listing every campsite you'll be staying at during your thruhike? Get a map, get a data book, get out the calendar, and have fun. Welcome to 21st Century Backpacking.
modern man 200,000 years ago? er....no. cromagnum man existed 40,000 years ago. i think modern man came a little while after that.

Rockhound
12-05-2008, 12:17
perhaps you should run for office. perhaps then, someday, you'll be in a position to exterminate all the useless breathers.

Tipi Walter
12-05-2008, 12:24
modern man 200,000 years ago? er....no. cromagnum man existed 40,000 years ago. i think modern man came a little while after that.

Anatomical, modern human: Between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

Spirit Walker
12-05-2008, 12:28
We ran into the fee/reservation issue when hiking the Great Divide Trail in Canada. Rather than pay a per night fee in the National Parks, we bought an annual National Park pass and an annual backcountry pass. Total was about $140 per person. We paid again for campsites in some of the Provincial Parks ($5 or $8, depending on where we were.) A six week hike cost us about $200 each. Not bad, considering.

Reservations were necessary in the busy areas of the national parks because of the sheer numbers of people who want to camp in the prime areas. We were at one backcountry campground that had room for 100 people, but most only had five or six tent sites. It's the same situation at Glacier or Yellowstone - in order to reduce crowding and ensure campsites, you make a reservation. Otherwise there would be 40 people vieing for the prime sites. Plus there is the bear issue - better to have people concentrated in an area with a bear pole or bear box than scattered and sleeping with their food. If you don't want to deal with reservations, then you go elsewhere and take your chances.

Tipi Walter
12-05-2008, 12:33
perhaps you should run for office. perhaps then, someday, you'll be in a position to exterminate all the useless breathers.

??? What?? If oxygen is free for all(until air pollution requires buying cleanng air), and we are all "breathers", in what logical way would it serve this conversation to 'exterminate all the useless breathers'?? It would be better to say, perhaps I should run for office so someday I could be in a position to reduce birthrates thereby lowering the population, open up more wilderness areas, end car tourism thru national parks, and stop charging people to backpack and camp.

Tipi Walter
12-05-2008, 12:40
Reservations were necessary in the busy areas of the national parks because of the sheer numbers of people who want to camp in the prime areas. We were at one backcountry campground that had room for 100 people, but most only had five or six tent sites. It's the same situation at Glacier or Yellowstone - in order to reduce crowding and ensure campsites, you make a reservation.

Too many rolling couch potatoes. Opening National Parks up to rolling car tourists was a choice the head honchos made years ago and it's coming home to bite them. Can anyone say: Cades Cove Motor Loop in a park with the worst air pollution in the country?? Uh, who's in charge? The solution to reducing crowding is elementary-school simple: Close the roads in the parks. The parks will still be wide open for the masses to use and see, but only on foot.

minnesotasmith
12-05-2008, 15:44
A good corollary are car drivers. In North Carolina and Tennessee we pay taxes for road use and gas but there is no daily charge to drive unlimited miles on 99% of the highways. If the state of Tennessee mandated daily tolls on all roads, people would riot.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/blue_ribbon_05_12-05-08_S0CHBG2_v20.3f0727b.html

Excerpt:


To repair Rhode Island roads, report calls for new tolls, taxes and higher fees


12:25 PM EST on Friday, December 5, 2008


By Bruce Landis

PROVIDENCE — Driving your car may take on a new and larger meaning — for your wallet.


To fix its crumbling roads and bridges and rescue the state’s financially challenged public transit system, a draft report made public yesterday says the state should consider charging tolls at the state line on every interstate highway and creating a new tax for each mile a vehicle is driven.

emerald
12-05-2008, 15:54
Properly funded and managed trails worth hiking aren't free and the time will come when user levels will be scrutinized and managed on the A.T. if it is to continue to be worth hiking. Both user fees and some kind of permitting system on the A.T. will one day be more widely employed, but I don't know what much of what's been posted has to do with the IAT, except to point the way toward something better.

Those who don't like the way things are done in Canada shouldn't go there.

taildragger
12-05-2008, 16:09
Too many rolling couch potatoes. Opening National Parks up to rolling car tourists was a choice the head honchos made years ago and it's coming home to bite them. Can anyone say: Cades Cove Motor Loop in a park with the worst air pollution in the country?? Uh, who's in charge? The solution to reducing crowding is elementary-school simple: Close the roads in the parks. The parks will still be wide open for the masses to use and see, but only on foot.

But then there are the fees with enforcing the rules, and eventually there won't be as large of a constituency or as powerful of a lobby to keep the park open. Eventually it'd get sold off to the highest bidder.

Sorry man, but your world doesn't exist in these times.

Fees suck, but thats why I like NFS. If if a forest can make some money, or at least break even, then thats awesome, and thats how I believe that it should be done. Some do that with fees, others do it with logging. Either way, the park/forest should be able to run itself w/o necessary outside assistance. That would be the 'fair' way.

Tipi Walter
12-05-2008, 17:11
But then there are the fees with enforcing the rules, and eventually there won't be as large of a constituency or as powerful of a lobby to keep the park open. Eventually it'd get sold off to the highest bidder.

Regulation=cost more to enforce rules=therefore people don't want to keep a park open?? Don't quite understand your comment.

I'm trying to think of any wilderness areas(which are not subject to powerful lobbies for car traffic or vehicle tourism), that have been sold off. We know cars or roads aren't allowed in the wilderness, and so there must be another powerful lobby trying to increase wilderness acreage and going against the multi-use access constituency.

By shutting out access except on foot(or horseback), do such limits increase the chance of having that land sold off to the highest bidder? I can think of many areas in the southeast, the Cohuttas, the Big Frog, the Citico Creek and Slickrock wilderness, Linville Gorge, Bald River Gorge, the Harpers Creek propsed wilderness, etc, that are stickly closed to everything but foot traffic that are in no danger of being sold off.

Rockhound
12-05-2008, 17:23
Regulation=cost more to enforce rules=therefore people don't want to keep a park open?? Don't quite understand your comment.

I'm trying to think of any wilderness areas(which are not subject to powerful lobbies for car traffic or vehicle tourism), that have been sold off. We know cars or roads aren't allowed in the wilderness, and so there must be another powerful lobby trying to increase wilderness acreage and going against the multi-use access constituency.

By shutting out access except on foot(or horseback), do such limits increase the chance of having that land sold off to the highest bidder? I can think of many areas in the southeast, the Cohuttas, the Big Frog, the Citico Creek and Slickrock wilderness, Linville Gorge, Bald River Gorge, the Harpers Creek propsed wilderness, etc, that are stickly closed to everything but foot traffic that are in no danger of being sold off. might i suggest you go hike there then

taildragger
12-05-2008, 17:32
Regulation=cost more to enforce rules=therefore people don't want to keep a park open?? Don't quite understand your comment.

I'm trying to think of any wilderness areas(which are not subject to powerful lobbies for car traffic or vehicle tourism), that have been sold off. We know cars or roads aren't allowed in the wilderness, and so there must be another powerful lobby trying to increase wilderness acreage and going against the multi-use access constituency.

By shutting out access except on foot(or horseback), do such limits increase the chance of having that land sold off to the highest bidder? I can think of many areas in the southeast, the Cohuttas, the Big Frog, the Citico Creek and Slickrock wilderness, Linville Gorge, Bald River Gorge, the Harpers Creek propsed wilderness, etc, that are stickly closed to everything but foot traffic that are in no danger of being sold off.

They have a larger constituency.

Lets take the black mountains. If people stopped visiting them as often, they would be deemed low priority by the gov't. The state would probably insist that the lands be sold off, or allowed logging/mineral rights to be exploited (thus the state can make money off of land that they would otherwise see as vacant and not doing anything).

Enforcement comes from people stopping the use of ATV or ORV's. As a former rock crawler, I can tell you that we can get into to almost any place, just give us a little time. Thats where the costs come in.

And, as in the first part, the fact that the land isn't producing any wealth or anything of economic value to the surrounding towns. That land may likely be sold if it has any worth.

Now, the black mountains do receive a lot of use, I believe fishermen and horse packs outweigh the hikers there, so I don't think that its in any real danger.

I'm too lazy to go any further into this. But I will end on this note:
I do agree that I think a lot of the fee systems are BS. There are certain places like Yosemite, that have such a large infrastructure that I do condone the fees in that the keep the valley in good condition and allow people other than just backpackers, horse packs, etc... to come in. I'd like to see the valley as it was before people came into it, but I don't want to exclude so many other people from seeing it (not just RVers, but climbers would get excluded as well).

And now I'm off to load up my bow and do some huntin' this weekend, maybe I'll get to see that cougar that I've been watching out for.

WalkingStick75
12-05-2008, 19:48
Tipi, you got me oxygen is still free. That is unless you have a lung problems, scuba diver, fly in a plane.... yea things like that, they its not free.

I'm not a big fan of having to pay to set up my tent (tarp) but I'm not opposed to paying a small fee to support the trail, whatever trail I hike. If I lived closer to the AT (and I will be someday) then I will give back to the trail and help maintain it with my physical work but for now I will support with a few bucks when I can.

warren doyle
12-07-2008, 13:52
No fees - walking in the mountains should always remain free.

slugger
01-16-2009, 11:54
No fees - walking in the mountains should always remain free.

While I agree that walking in the mountains should always be free you can't realistically says that there will always be mountains for you to walk on with out monetary support.

I could see putting up a donation box at the start or each new trail clubs section and again at the shelters. maintaining the trail and building shelters and privies are not a free thing and I would happily donate and I walk through/use.

JAK
01-16-2009, 12:06
I could be wrong but I think the development of the IAT in Atlantic Canada is part of a new trend where government sees eco-tourism as an industry. Everything today seems to be turning into an industry. It's the dead wrong way to go in my opinion.

FLETCH6
01-28-2009, 13:59
A few years ago there was a proposal to have a dedicated fee or tax on hiking gear that would go to hiking trails in the same way the hunters and fishermen pay a tax on there gear. It was called" teaming with wildlife". It died or was killed acording to your definition. You would not know that you were paying this tax because it was on the manufacturing level.