With some parks requiring advanced reservations for visitors, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park requiring parking tags if you plan to park, is the America the Beautiful Pass diminished in value?

Editor's note: This updates with NPS comment on the value of the America the Beautiful passes.

Is Value Of America The Beautiful Pass In Decline? 

Once upon a time, there was a pass that could get you into every unit of the National Park System for free whenever the parks were opened. Sadly, growing park crowds have led to timed entry systems and even parking fees that seemingly are chewing away at the value of the America the Beautiful passes.

National Park Service officials in Washington, D.C., say timed entry systems for some parks are needed to "protect park resources and provide for a more enjoyable visitor experience." And they note that those parks that have turned to reservations have off-peak times daily when visitors can enter without a reservations.

Still, the implementation last week of the need for a "parking tag" if you plan to pull over in Great Smoky Mountains National Park for more than 15 minutes prompted a flurry of comments to the Traveler via its social media pages as well as the flagship website, and not all were complimentary.

"They will generate a huge amount of income through ticketing vehicles without a Smoky parking pass. None of that income will go towards adding parking spaces or making visiting the park any easier," neonlumberjack wrote on the Traveler's Instagram page. "Everything is geared toward making more income from less visitors. The parks are funded by taxes, and if an annual park pass doesn’t count towards all fees, then that’s just a separate entrance fee by another name (which Smokey can’t charge for) and will be challenged in court, costing the park(s) hundreds of thousands in legal fees."

"If I’ve already paid for an annual pass there is no way I should have to pay for another pass!," added truenorthtc.

Many others, though, cited the park's inability to charge a formal entrance fee because the state of Tennessee, when it transferred the Newfound Gap Road to the park, placed a restriction on the deed that said a fee could never be charged for traversing that road.

"I don’t have an issue with the parking pass, even though as a pass holder I still have to pay for parking," wrote Kelli Handley. "GSMNP will never have an entry fee, unless key provisions and laws change, so revenue has to be raised some way. A parking fee seems to be the best way to do it. Perhaps a discount on the annual parking for pass holders, TN/NC residents (most likely to be frequent users) and seniors is appropriate."

Great Smoky's parking tag issue is just the latest flash point when it comes to accessing the National Park System and the inability of the America the Beautiful Pass to get you into some parks whenever you want to head out. Glacier National Park requires timed-entry tickets for Going-to-the-Sun Road as well as the North Fork, Many Glacier, and Two Medicine areas of the park. Arches National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park also require such reservations, and Acadia National Park requires reservations for driving to the top of Cadillac Mountain (though that doesn't affect general entry into other areas of the park).

"I don't think a pass holder should have to purchase a parking ticket," Jerry C wrote on the Traveler website. "There's too many fees being assessed for visits to our great outdoors by rec.gov and the parks, now.  Even a fee to get a chance' to pay another fee for a campsite or permit in many parks now. The way things are going, soon, there will be a fee just to access rec.gov."

"The annual pass should be all-encompassing. Raise it from $80 to $100 if you have to, but it should get me into every park for free," added Jonathan Bowman.

But Benjamin Lord, in voicing supporting for the parking tags, pointed out that, "[F]ees are important for the park. The base budget for [Great Smoky Mountains National Park] is 20-24 million dollars, with a permanent staff of 120 employees and a total of 260 employees at seasonal peak. This cadre of people serves over 12 million people. They are overwhelmed at times, so they need all the help they can get."

The problem behind the degrading of the America the Beautiful Pass is two-fold: Some parks are woefully overcrowded -- “We’re proud to be the most-visited 'national park,' but it does present challenges due to wear and tear on aging facilities and a strain on park resources and employees," said Great Smoky Superintendent Cassius Cash when he announced the program -- and also woefully underfunded by Congress.

Indeed, if more fees, and increases in existing fees, greatly concern you, demand that Congress address the problems. The Park Service can only work with the budget it's given.

Congressman Ryan Zinke has issues with reservations to drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. But as Interior Secretary he didn't have a problem with allowing the surge pricing of park entrance fees that some feared would price some visitors out of summertime visits/NPS file

About Glacier's Reservations

None other than former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, once again a congressman representing Montana, is speaking out against the ticketed entry program at Glacier National Park. 

“Attention locals, the federal government is announcing when you can try — and likely fail — to get permission to access your public lands. The reservation system has to go,” Zinke tweeted recently.

The Republican told the Hungry Horse News the other day that the reservation system prevents Montanans from visiting the park. He told the newspaper that the system pits Montana residents against 360 million Americans in hoping to land a reservation.

"They don’t stand a chance, statistically,” he told the newspaper, adding the reservation system “primarily puts a burden on locals, who no longer have access to the park.” 

On March 1, after he tried and failed to win a ticket, Zinke tweeted that, "[T]he entire reservation system is a deliberate strategy to keep the public out of parks and this website is a total scam.”

During his abbreivated tenure as Interior secretary, Zinke tried to implement "surge pricing" for some parks as a means to generate more funding for them to help with attacking the park system's maintenance backlog. The proposal was criticized by the National Parks Conservation Association as a means of locking some Americans out of the parks.

“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," Theresa Pierno, NPCA's president and CEO said at the time. "The solution to our parks’ repair needs cannot and should not be largely shouldered by its visitors."

Why doesn't the National Park Service have a system-wide policy for dealing with feral horses?/Kurt Repanshek file

What To Do With Horses?

The National Park Service has a horse problem. It's not the number of feral horses in the parks, it's that there seems to be a lack of guidance on when feral horses are good for a park and when they should be removed.

At Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, officials are leaning towards slowly removing the park's 200 or so feral horses because they're considered nonnative livestock. That proposal is not being embraced by everyone.

"We camped in the park for three days this fall. We very much enjoyed seeing the horses. Let them stay!" fiercegreenfire commented on the Traveler's story. "Are they causing problems? If policy becomes removing all non-native species, the question I ask is 'non-native to what time period?' In our National Parks in general, that would be a lot of species to get rid of!"

"Removing the horses will not end problems it will just create new problems," read an anonymous comment. "Yes there is competition for food throughout the year but that's not due to the horses being there.  It's a balance that has been there now for decades.  Without horses the native animals will begin to over populate and then what will be done, a culling of native animals.  Right now across the board there should be a an indexing done and calculate what the park can safely sustain. Not just the horses. Once this has been determined then a population control for all can be suggested a put in place. Horses are not the problem,  the land, park and climate are the issues.  The animals are now part of the balance in the park. Technically,  adding some healthy predators would be good for the park to control population in a natural way and at a rate that will be become part of the balance. Of course that would be out of the question because predators could pose a threat to people. And above all the park belongs to people,  not the animals or nature history that the park holds."

"Horse have been in this beautiful natural habitat for a century as have the cowboys & Indians, this is ND pride, keep and preserve our great herirage!" wrote Theresa Johnson.

Across the country at Cumberland Island National Seashore, horse advocacy groups have criticized the way the Park Service is caring for the feral horses at the seashore. In reporting on the matter, Mary Landers at The Current wrote that the advocates maintain that failing to care for or remove Cumberland's horses amounts to animal cruelty, which Georgia law forbids. They cite both Georgia’s Humane Care for Equines Act and the Georgia Equine Act.

Cumberland Island Superintendent Gary Ingram refused to sit down with Landers for an interview, but told her in an email that, "[C]ondition ratings for observed animals have always been predominantly in the 'good' to "moderate” categories. At no time during the last 41+ years has there been a significant die-off or anything indicating that the overall health of the herd was in extremely poor condition. The island is 36,000 acres in size with half of the acreage in upland habitat and the other half in fresh and brackish water marsh habitat.  The herd appears to have stabilized its numbers relative to the amount of natural food available on the island.”

At the same time, the Park Service at Cumberland Island acknowledges that the horses are non-native, and that "[N]on-natives compete with native species for habitat and food. They are capable of taking over ecosystems that plants or animals need to survive."

There are other parks with feral horses. Among them: Assateague Islands National Seashore, Cape Lookout National Seashore, and Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Death Valley National Park has feral burros that it has long tried to remove.

At Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, staff from time to time deals with trespassing horses that enter the park. "The presence of trespass livestock is inconsistent with the park’s mission to preserve the cultural and natural resources within the park and has caused damage to springs, riparian areas and archeological sites and objects," the Mesa Verde website points out.

If the Park Service views feral horses as non-natives that compete with native wildlife, shouldn't it have a system-wide policy of removing them, rather than allowing a contradictory approach depending on the local sentiments to dealing with them? After all, a non-native species is a non-native species.