The National Park Service likes to promote that visitors give the National Park System a 96 percent approval rating. That's pretty lofty, but is it accurate?
Remember the "good ole days" when you could buy a National Park Pass for $50, one that would get you into as many national parks as many times as you wanted during one calendar year? Remember the days when a backcountry permit was free? Remember when you didn't have to pay to park in a park?
Traveler reader Gary Wheeler remembers those days.
"I'm a huge national park fan and often get a yearly pass (that $80 will be hard to recoup this year)," he told us. "I also want to say I soured a great deal on the pass after recent trips. I found I had to pay at Devil's Postpile (National Monument) to take a shuttle into the park. I had to pay parking at Rushmore. ... Rushmore was particularly frustrating: 'We have free admission, but you have to pay to park.' If that's the case, then why did I buy a parks pass?
"I am finding way too many places where my pass does me no good and I am hit with hidden fees," says Mr. Wheeler.
To that end, he has a reasonable suggestion: The National Park Service on its website should provide a clear and easily understandable table "of all parks and monuments along with admission fees, parking fees, additional fees, etc. That would be so informative and so easy to implement."
Now, don't misunderstand. The national parks remain an incredible resource in this country. But from time to time everyone can learn from others and find better ways to operate, ways to improve business. With that understood, what suggestions do you, the true national park travelers, have for the National Park Service?
Comments
I have been visiting National Parks since a baby here in Utah and have gained so much more in life because of it. Any extra cost is worth it, if a person can pay $40 for ONE DAY at a Six Flags I think we can manage $80 for a year worth of National Parks and the additional parking fees. However, the parks should notify patrons of the parking fees or supply a list of parks that charge these fees.
I also have another recommendation: Free Days. In Ogden, Utah there is a program called R.A.M.P that charges a tax in order to have the local museums offer a day free. This allows people of lower income or people who would normally not pay to go to local parks/museums a free day to try it. This program has led to me buying multiple season pases to local museums, because I did not realize what they had to offer. National Parks should offer this to build up visitation, thus lowering costs or just to allow people the chance to view.
These suggestions are aimed at Congress for the management of NPS and its units:
1) NPS units should never -- ever-- be designated solely to boost tourism revenue for nearby towns. National Parks should exist to educate and celebrate and preserve ecosystems, landscapes, landmarks and our natural and cultural history.
2) Ditch the entrance fees. The importance of our national parks and the education and enlightenment visitors receive there should be entirely taxayer-funded. No potential visitor should ever have to question whether he or she can afford to enter a park after spending a fortune to get there.
3) Maintain the no pets rule. NPS should never be in the business of managing dogs and cats and their excrement. Park resources are too precious for their managers to be distracted by pets and their testy owners.
4) Put resource protection above infrastructure improvements -- period. Controversial, I know, but the sleekness and extravagance of a visitor center (the new Arches NP monstrosity is a perfect example) is far less important than protecting the very resources the parks were presumably designated for in the first place. That said, when infrastructure must take priority, do it right. New visitor centers should be humble, accessible and artful, following the tradition of the best and least gaudy Mission 66 and previous projects while not being extravagant and grandiose. Economical aesthetic value is important: When Arches erected new roadsigns last year, they lacked the traditional (albeit scant) NPS aesthetic value, looking like boring instutional block-letter highway signs. Please show the least bit of artfulness.
5) All new structures and infrastructure should fit the landscape and should employ "green," energy efficient architecture.
6) The goverment should attempt to purchase land around national parks that can serve as buffer zones between development and the parks themselves, each acting as a transition between the developed environment and that of the protected park setting.
7) Congress and the NPS should vigorously oppose any and all energy development surrounding national parks. Canyonlands NP last year had a giant drilling rig set up within view of the Island in the Sky entrance station, while flaring oil wells can be seen at night from Arches National Park's Windows section. Such development (most of it on public land) degrades our parks and their air quality. Congress should pass a moratorium on any resource extraction on public lands within 10 miles or or within view of a national park boundary regardless what anti-park locals have to say about it.
8) It should go without saying that pumping tax dollars into our parks is an investment in our heritage, national identity and future. Neglecting parks and the resources they protect is an affront to all Americans. What we choose to protect and celebrate is a telling commentary on who we are as a nation and a people. Don't squander this opportunity.
After my recent visit to Mount Rainier National Park, I have the following two very specific suggestions:
First, have hand soap in the campground bathrooms. It seems to me that MORA is trying to save money by not having soap in the campground bathrooms. This seems to pose a public health risk. When talking to the seasonal maintenance staff, they said management told them they didn't have soap because campers would bring their own soap. I suppose this has some logic to it, but it's kind of inconvenient to go number 2 and then, discovering there is no soap, to have to open the door with unclean hands and walk back to camp and dig through everything with contaminated hands to find some bar soap and then walk back to the bathroom to wash one's hands. Perhaps the NPS could divert money SEKI is spending on a Rae Lakes eHike, done to make the parks' web content more "hip". In my opinion soap, clean bathrooms, and toilet paper are more important and more relevant to ACTUAL park visitors than hip web content. The NPS could cut any number of social engineering projects and divert that tax money to providing high-quality basic visitor services.
Secondly, hire quality seasonal interpretive rangers who have proven teaching experience and talent rather than hiring people from certain ethnic groups to "diversify the staff". I sat through the worst evening program in my life at Mount Rainier last week. The NPS has moved from Kodak slide projectors in favor of PowerPoint, but newer technology alone cannot guarantee a higher quality visitor experience. The interpretive ranger had PowerPoint slides with far too much text, including grammatical and spelling errors. Each slide stayed up for several minutes as the ranger droned on and on and on without a solid theme. Her public speaking skills were atrocious, and she mispronounced and misspoke numerous words. Small maps on slides were too hard to read. The program was just horrible. I had to apologize to my wife, who had never seen an evening program. I told her about the amazing programs I saw over the last 22 years and how special they were and how you just had this magical feeling at a campfire program. How did this person get hired? Well, she is an ethnic minority, and the NPS has an unofficial policy of preferring "underrepresented" minorities to "diversify" the staff rather than hiring people based on talent and experience alone. No amount of technology can mask incompetence.
I absolutely love this idea! Although I fear for it (witness how pathetic Amtrak, a current "federal business", is), it would take the politics out of the NPS. Unfortunately, it would bring the business into it, which, IMO, is just as unethical, shortsighted, and stupid.
If it could be some sort of national trust, with an independent board of directors, like other not-for-profit institutions, it would be better.
We all know our elected officials are failing the parks. Few alternatives could do worse.
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My travels through the National Park System: americaincontext.com
"The National Park Service likes to promote that visitors give the National Park System a 96 percent approval rating."
Kurt,
One of the problems I have with this statistic is with its implications when compared to the total visitation to our parks. For example, if we were to say that current park visitation is on the order of 100 million per year, and if there is a 96% positive approval rating, then this means that 4 million park visitors per year are having a less than totally positive experience. This is a lot of people for whom a park experience is less than optimum. That's far too many negative impressions to conclude that the status quo is acceptable.
The NPS is making great strides to professionalize and increase its staff of law enforcement officers. I would hope similar strides could be made by the NPS to regain its former leadership in interpretation/education/ resources management and scientific research. On the other hand, I would hope that all uniformed employees of the NPS, including law enforcement and resources management specialists have, as part of their professional mission and training, the objective to engage the park visitor to enhance their park experience. This objective should be shared by all NPS employees; it should not be a specialty mission reserved for the park interpreter-ranger.
With respect to the issue of park visits by pet owners: This is a very important and growing segment of society. Many families, and even seniors, are having second thoughts about a park visit because of a perceived anti-pet policy. This did not seem to be the case on my recent (2006) visit to the Canadian Rockies where pets (dogs) on a leash seemed to be permitted on all park trails, other than those routes posted for Grizz.
On the trails of Banff National Park, the few dogs I encountered were on the leash and well behaved, and I had no difficulties with barking, droppings, etc. Many family pets were encountered with groups hiking in mid-September to Larch Valley above Moraine Lake.
In Germany and Norway, pets were permitted in trains and restaurants, as well as in the forests and on trails. While in Austria, our German Shepherd even slept with us in a mountain hut on flanks of the Gros Glockner. Are dogs on trails (on the leash) really that big of a problem? If so why are dogs on or off leash permitted in non-NPS wilderness areas?
I would rather permit pets than firearms in parks. I would rather permit pets than expand campgrounds to provide for motor-home versions of RV's with all amenities hook-ups. I would rather permit pets than expand the capacity of high-end luxury hotels. The price of a room at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite makes me blanch.
I think the NPS should encourage the use of parks for outdoor education. Hiking and traditional tent camping under the stars should be encouraged. I'm abivalent about the use of pack animals and equestrian use because of trail and meadow damage in areas of high visitation.
Some purists would say that NPS campgrounds should not have hot showers. At age 63, I think it would be wise to provide such facilities, otherwise the absence of showers contributes to a self-selection for more formal lodging. The Crater Lake Mazama Campground commercial showers, however, are substandard. There should be some means for the park visitor to issue the NPS and the park concessions a report card at the conclusion of their visit. Maybe in this way, we can increase the percent positive park approval rating from 96% to 99% (where it should be).
There shoud be more primitive, walk-in type campgrounds, however, with no fees and no amenities. Front country walk-in style campsites might have a simple wash house with clean toilets. Of course, the back country should remain as wilderness, and camping should entail minimum impact. Evening ranger programs without slides and recorded music should be encouraged.
For the larger more heavily visited/impacted parks, the NPS will have to wrestle with and establish visitor carryiing capacities. However, I think that if the carrying capacity were to focus on the private automobile, most of the apparent problems, including in-park crime, would be solved.
The economic/political importance of parks to gateway communities and regional incomes, will always have to be considered as an entity in future park planning. To do otherwise, will almost certainly guarantee a shorter-than average career for any aspiring park manager. Nevertheless, where there is a conflict, conservation, preservation, and protection of park resources must take precedence over visitor use and tourism. This paradigm, however, will be easier to say than put into practice. Ask any former NPS Director or park superintendent.
I agree that park developments, including park visitor centers, should be the minimum necessary to facilitate a park visit. They should not become the event in and of themselves. I agree that the Arches NP VC is a bit too much. Certainly the NPS could have done better.
On the other hand, the VC's at the Needles section of Canyonlands National Park and at Natural Bridges and at Hovenweep National Monuments were the right size and outstanding. I even found law enforcement rangers assisting at the information desk and enjoying themselves as they fielded a variety of visitor questions.
Sincerely,
Owen Hoffman
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
Raise more money for the NPS, by having a two-tiered pricing structure. American citizens and legal residents pay a reduced price. Foreign tourists pay more. This is done in the EU. EU passport carrying people get in at reduced prices or free at certain museums and sites. This would raise more money for the parks without squeezing taxpayers anymore.
It seems very doubtful that career Park personnel welcomed the new proliferating fee-systems. They did not envision themselves becoming nickel & dime collectors from an irate public. It is harshly dissonant to their self-image, to be rooting & grubbing from an often resentful & doubtful public, to support the Park budget.
Most of the basic citizenry holds that these are our Parks, supported on the public purse, and that fee-systems are a manipulation. To what purpose this irritation of both the Park folks & the public is aimed, is the key question.
That bureaucrats (Park personnel) become comfortable & territorial is a perennial problem for modern civilizations. That Park people have taken on very strong political positions - and even active agendas - aggravates their relationship with Congress, which isn't remotely as green & liberal-preservationist as tenured Park officialdom.
I will speculate, that the idea to have the Parks support themselves through user fees, is a convenient ruse aimed to achieve goals which Congress could not expose to the light of day without a backlash.
Although the public is largely conditioned to accept the situation as natural, it is by no means necessary that Park folks be activists for the Green movement. Essentially, the public tax dollar goes to support a large body of professionals all across the nation, who prefer policies & positions which reflect a minority Liberal-Environmental agenda. Neither Congress nor the public have a makeup or orientation that is reflected in the positions & attitudes of Park professionals.
We in effect subsidize the Sierra Club et al, in the form of the Park payroll.
It seems feasible that these mismatched viewpoints and political adversities have prompted Congress to embark on a cloaked campaign to 'shake up' the Park Service. Fees may be a device to that end.
Frank,
The soap issue has come up in this park as well. Our Chief of Mantainence has said that it is because the bathouses are not public restrooms (unlike the VC restrooms) since you have to pay to use them, and thus, are not subject to the same rules/ideas/standards that public RRs are. The Super is looking into it, though.