Document text
Trail parking fees raise nature-lovers' ire Photo by Bob Pennell Longtime hiker Art Armstrong is unhappy with the $3 ticket he found on his car July 4 for not buying a parking pass. Armstrong isn't the only one: Demonstrators plan to make their feelings known across the country today on the trail fee program. BY PAUL FATTIG Art Armstrong wants the Forest Service to take a hike with its trail park fee pilot program. The Medford resident, who found what he says was a $3 ticket attached to his car on July 4 for not acquiring a parking fee pass while parking in the Rogue River National Forest, refuses to pay. "It's double taxation," said Armstrong, 69, a retired structural draftsman. "We're already subsidizing the lumber and mining industries. Until they stop subsidies in the national forests, they shouldn't charge anyone for hiking." Today protesters nationwide will march against the recreation fee demonstration program established by Congress in 1997. Started in 1998, the pilot program is scheduled to expire in the fall of 2001. Forest Service officials say the program is aimed at improving trails and trailheads, and that they don't issue tickets in the usual sense. Rather, they are merely issuing "remittance envelopes" for a one-day pass as part of an effort to educate the public about the program, they say. It's the agency that needs to be educated, responded Armstrong, an avid hiker and member of the Rogue Group Sierra Club who leads weekly hikes. He says he was parked nearly half a mile from a parking lot where a Forest Service trail park pass is required. Since he did not park in the parking area, he feels he should not pay the fee. He intentially parked a long distance from the parking area at the Seven Lakes trailhead leading to the Sky Lakes basin, because of his objections to the program. A day after finding the request for the $3 fee, Armstrong firee off a letter to agency representatives indicating he would see them in court before he would pay the fee. He says a forest representative later called, and told him to forget about the whole thing. "I said I wanted a written response," he said, adding, "If I ever find another one stuck on my car, I'll take them to court." Bend area resident Scott Silver, executive director of Wild Wilderness, a group devoted to preserving wilderness, has organized a national day of protest today opposing the program. "The mere act of paying for a wilderness experience changes everything for me," Silver explained. "It would be the same difference that paid sex is different than romantic love." Quickly noting that he has no experience in the former, Silver said the trail fee issue is raising hackles across America. "We go to the wilderness to get away from commercialism," he said. "In turning it into a product, you ruin it." And he predicted that the wilderness experience on public lands will change forever if the fee program is not stopped "You will see tent campers replaced by RVs, hikers by motorcyclists, fishermen with private water craft," he said, later adding, "It can't be wild if it isn't free." The protest he has organized will be held in 26 sites, from Arizona to Seattle. In Oregon, that includes peaceful protests in Portland, Eugene, Bend and three along the central Oregon coasts. No protests are planned for Southern Oregon. "The Forest Service has not acknowledged the level of opposition," he said. "What people are concerned about is the commercialization of the wild." The agency is interested in the concern of forest users, said Patty Burel, spokeswoman for the regional office in Portland. Several public surveys through the end of September are intended to capture that concern, she said. But people who park near trailheads without a pass can expect to receive a yellow envelope, she said. "We are encouraging people to drop $3 in the envelope and just send it in," she said. The trail park fee program has helped the agency rebuild and maintain portions of its vast trail system in the Rogue River and Siskiyou national forests, said Mary Marrs, spokesperson for the forests. "It has been very beneficial for us," she said. The fees raised about $12,000 in the Siskiyou last year compared to about $18,000 in the Rogue River forest, officials report. This year, the Rogue River National Forest began using the money to spruce up trails. Earlier this spring, a crew hired by the agency cleared and restored the Cook and Green Trail in the upper Applegate River drainage, a project which cost the forest about $5,000. Another $3,000 from the recreation fee fund has been earmarked for working on the Mount McLaughlin trail this summer. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA