By Pat Jenkins
The Dispatch
By the middle of next year, summertime visitors could be paying $70 a carload – nearly three times what it costs now -- to drive into Mount Rainier National Park.
That’s one of the increased entrance fees being proposed by the National Park Service for a handful of its most heavily used parks around the U.S. The plan is to generate money to pay for upgrades of roads, campgrounds and other park amenities.
The higher fees, which would take effect June 1 at Mount Rainier, would be charged during what park officials define as the peak visitor season. For Rainier, that’s basically the summer months, when the bulk of the approximately 1 million-plus visits occur.
The peak fees would be $70 per private non-commercial vehicle, $50 per motorcycle, and $30 per person who enters on a bike or on foot. At Mount Rainier, the current fees are $25 per vehicle ($20 for motorcycles), and a pedestrian or bicyclist gets in for $10.
An annual pass would be available for $75.
The current entrance fees for Mount Rainier were increased in 2015 in response to a request by the Park Service for all fee-charging parks to generate more revenue through fees to meet the cost of maintaining and enhancing the parks. The standard vehicle fee, for instance went from $15 to $25. Before that, entrance fees hadn’t been raised since 2006.
“The infrastructure of our national parks is aging and in need of renovation and restoration,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke as the proposed new fees were announced Oct. 24. “Targeted fee increases at some of our most visited parks will help ensure that they are protected and preserved in perpetuity, and that visitors enjoy a world-class experience that mirrors the amazing destinations they are visiting. We need to have the vision to look at the future of our parks and take action in order to ensure that our grandkids' grandkids will have the same, if not better, experience than we have today. Shoring up our parks' aging infrastructure will do that.”
The Park Service is accepting the public’s comments on the peak-season entrance fee until Nov. 23. In the first few days after last week’s announcement, reactions from the public on the Park Service’s Facebook page, while not specific to Mount Rainier, indicated frustration with higher fees. Opposition came from Washington’s U.S. senators, too.
There also was support for the fees. Some Facebook posters defended the Park Service’s rationale for the proposal.
On the other side were commenters who said the fees would price-out low-income individuals and families, and Congress and the federal government came in for criticism for not funding parks adequately.
Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray voiced similar criticism in a letter to Zinke.
“We believe that it is especially problematic for (the Department of the Interior) to propose fee increases at the same time that the Trump administration is recommending slashing National Park Service funding levels,” the senators wrote. They also claimed people of limited income would be priced out of the opportunity to enjoy Mount Rainier and other national parks where the higher fees would exist.
Along with Cantwell and Murray, the letter was signed by senators from Hawaii, Oregon, New Mexico, California, Vermont, Virginia and Maryland.
In addition to upgrading roads, bridges and campgrounds, the Park Service would use funds from the new fees to pay for waterlines and bathrooms.
Mount Rainier has had two major road projects in recent years – the rehabilitation of Stevens Canyon Road, and new paving and other improvements of the road from Longmire to Paradise.
The 17 national parks where the new peak-season fees include two in Washington – Olympic being the second. The others are Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, and Bryce Canyon in Utah, Denali in Alaska, Glacier in Montana, Grand Canyon in Arizona, Grand Teton and Yellowstone in Wyoming, Yosemite, Joshua Tree, Sequoia and Kings Canyon in California, Acadia in Maine, Rocky Mountain in Colorado, and Shenandoah in Virginia.
According to the Park Service, the fees nationwide could increase park revenue by $70 million per year. That would be 34 percent higher than the $200 million collected in fiscal year 2016.
Mount Rainier and the other parks with the peak-season fees would keep most of whatever new revenue comes from the new rates. Federal law requires 80 percent of an entrance fee to stay in the park where it’s collected. The other 20 percent is shared among the 417 parks nationally.
Some current fees wouldn’t change. The cost of the annual America the Beautiful-National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass, which provides entrance to all federal recreation land, including parks for a one-year period, would remain $80. In addition, holders of senior passes, park volunteers, and military members and veterans also wouldn’t pay the peak fees.
The Park Service is also considering higher entry and permit fees for commercial tour operators, as well as a peak-season fee.
In 2016, 331 million park visitors across the U.S. spent an estimated $18.4 billion in the parks’ regions. The spending supported 318,000 jobs and $34.9 billion in economic activity in the national economy, officials said.
Mount Rainier-related tourism generated $58.3 million in local economic impact, according to the Park Service.
The mountain is “a world-class travel destination for visitors from around the globe, as well as residents of the Pacific Northwest,” Tracy Swartout, Mount Rainier National Park’s deputy superintendent, said last spring in reference to the park’s popularity.
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