Hiking fees on the AT someday?

[hikerat2002]

There is a swirling agenda possibly going on for public lands. You have heard of the fee demo program for forests perhaps? Check this site out and think about how nice it is to hike on the AT without paying much ,if any fees, at all:

www.freeourforests.org

[chris]

I think that it would be hard to charge thruhikers or long section hikers. Logistics are tough and there isn't the man power to enforce a permit system. I would not be suprised to see more parking and day use fees in the future.

[icemanat95]

The way to enforce the fees on long distance hikers is to tie completion recognition to a permit. So, if you didin't purchase the season permit for x number of dollars, then you can't get recognized for completing the hike. Many folks would say, screw it and not bother, but many would pony up so they could hang the certificate on the wall.

I am of two minds on the subject because I don't think it is unreasonable to ask the people who use a resource to pay for it's maintenance, but thru-hiking has a different sort of elan to it that could be spoiled by having to pay for a permit. Also, I think the permit would need to be pretty moderate, like the cost of the White Mountain season parking permit, or it would be rejected out of hand. I think a 20 dollar fee would be acceptible to most thru-hikers, but in terms of real dollars generated...it would add up to only around 40,000 dollars if 2000 prospective thru-hikers paid it each year. That's chicken feed.

Realistically, how much is the trail worth to you?

I know, I know, "It's priceless," but really, how much do you pony up of your own hard earned cash each year to help maintain the trail? I'm betting most thru-hikers, prospective thru-hikers and alumni thru-hikers don't even maintain an ATC membership. Others pour thousands of dollars of volunteer time and labor into trail maintenance. BUt most of us are pretty minimal in our trail contributions.

When all the Saddleback furor was going on I offered to front a grass roots fund raising project to provide the supplemental funds necessary to buy the contested lands outright, reasoning that if the trail was priceless then every hiker would be willing to kick in enough to meet a market price that was less than that. I earnmarked $500.00 from my personally savings for the project, but could get zero support from all the hikers raving about how important it was to save those lands. There were some 1500 users on that sight who regularly kept tabs on the progress of the Saddleback conflict and not ONE offered to kick in supplementary funds The measure of the actual physical commitment of most hikers was extremely low, they all pretty much assumed that it was the governments job to protect those lands and that all the funds should come out of the general tax and fee income of the government. They did not feel that as hikers they had an additional responsibility to protect that land. I found that unsettling and sad.

If we want to save our wildlands we've got to stop looking to a nameless, faceless government to do it for us with other people's money. It was never intended to work that way and it cannot work that way now. If we want to make sure our wildlands stay wild, we, the people who value those lands, need to pony up and make it happen. For while those lands are truly priceless, not everyone out there sees it that way. The vast majority of folks out there look at 100 acres of land and try to figure out how they can subdivide it into 75-100 house lots at 50-100 grand a piece. If you want to stop them, you've got to out bid them when the land comes up for sale, or pre-empt the process by negotiating the sale privately before the developers catch wind of it, and you've got to be willing to pay enough to make it worth the seller's while to entertain their higher notions.

So do I think hiker fees are reasonable? Yeah, I think they are, but I'm not sure they are enforceable or practical because I don't think most hikers actually feel a commitment to the land.

[Peaks]

Good post. But I'll try to keep mine brief.

I think that anyone who hike the trail has a tremendous obligation to give back, stewardship if you will. Now, there are several ways to do this. Adopt a section of trail, or a shelter is one. For others, get involved with your local trail club so that others can discover the magic that you did. At the very least, if you don't want to give your time and energy, then join the local club or two so that at least have some financial support from you.

As is, the average age of trail maintainers is the grey head set. Yet the average age of thru-hikers is probably 20 something. The younger generation needs to get involved with the trail in order to keep it going.

[Blue Jay]

Peaks, is as usual, correct. As for Iceman, I would agree with you except for one small but important point. We have already paid for the AT and all of the other parks in the country a thousand times over. You must be aware that any and all trail fees would just be used for yet another "Smart Bomb" or another corporate CEO tax break. If you think one dime of it would go to the ATC, I've got an AT log bridge to sell you.

[hikerat2002]

I concur. One of the challenges to getting hikers to pony up money for the AT is that the $$ most likely will be sent to the fed's general coiffures. A best case scenario would be a donation drive in trail towns administered by volunteers and the money sent to an escrow or other neautral middleman. Proceeds could go to pay for tools, land, materials, etc. that keep the trail going. Ideally, getting the trail 'privatized' into the hands of the hikers would be a good thing. Perhaps even something like a mutual fund for the trail could work, where hikers paid a a small annual due to keep the trail from being overseen more and more by a fed budget. I would earmark $50 a year for this myself personally. OK, not a mutual fund, but some kind fund that would go directly to support the trail and not employ paper-pushers. Multiply $50 a year by maybe 200,000 trail enthusiasts and that would be $10 million a year. It could be a start.

[steve hiker]

It wouldn't be any harder to effectively charge thru-hikers user fees than to keep track of backcountry permits. Not once the new biochip legislation passes. The public will love it, life will be so much more convenient. We'll just hike away down any National Park trail we want, and discreetly placed electro magnetic sensors will automatically charge our Play Pal accounts. No more rangers confronting you about fees or permits. No more permit planning to stress you out before you head out. Everything will be automatic and carefree.

And the scofflaws who let their Play Pal account run low? Their user privileges will be shut down with a non-health threatening charge to the central nervous system.

[hikerat2002]

You joke, but biochips won't have much hassle passing into mainstream if it pisses off parents.

[icemanat95]

There are A LOT of user fees and specific taxes that go to specific funds. There is a federal excise tax levied on hunting equipment and firearms purchases that goes directly to conservation funds and wildlife preservation funds. Most of that money gets used to buy public land in the form of wildlife preserves and gamelands. The AT passes through a lot of parcels purchased with these monies.

All it takes is for the enacting legislation to be written in a way that ensures that the money gathered stays inside the forest service or park service. The Parking Fees collected in the White Mountain National Forest stay within the White Mountain National Forest, because the regulations that allowed them to collect those fees stipulated that those fees remain in the system.

It's just that simple. Properly written legislation ensures the money goes where it's supposed to.