Mt Hood National Forest Campgrounds

[olderthanIusedtobe]

I'm not a legal expert, but I believe the Mt. Lemmon ruling set a precedent that most likely would also be applied to other locations in other states. I have noticed that signs for fee use areas (requiring a NWFP) disappeared all over Washington at trail heads that don't have bathrooms. However a strict reading of the ruling is that you can ONLY be charged if you use the amenities at the trail head, you can't be charged simply because the amenities are there. Theoretically a hiker could arrive at the trail head and immediately start their hike without using the bathroom or throwing any garbage away. In this case they can't legally be charged to park at the trail head, but good luck sorting out whether a hiker used the amenities or not.

I haven't seen Forest Service personnel out patrolling trail heads to check for parking passes recently, but I have definitely seen it in the past. With limited personnel and limited resources, seems like there are MUCH better ways to spend their time.

And I will ask, yet again, to Forest Keeper or whoever else is in favor of keeping the NWFP, how in the world do they manage to get by without collecting parking fees at Forest Service trail heads in most of the states other than the Northwest? Something about that has been extremely fishy to me right from the get go and has never been even remotely addressed.

[drm]

And I will ask, yet again, to Forest Keeper or whoever else is in favor of keeping the NWFP, how in the world do they manage to get by without collecting parking fees at Forest Service trail heads in most of the states other than the Northwest? Something about that has been extremely fishy to me right from the get go and has never been even remotely addressed.

It has been addressed before but I don't remember what thread. This issue always returns.

The fees are collected in California, even more widely than here. They are not collected in the intermountain west, most of which has vastly lower population density. And when I lived in Colorado, I don't remember worrying about logs down across trails. So our conditions are worse also due to the nature of our forests. In most of the forests I hiked in in Colorado, the trees would be called twigs by most PNW people. The trail I hiked last weekend, Quartz Creek, which took 6 trail pros 5 days to clear - (using chainsaws, not crosscuts) had scores of trees across it like you just don't find in the Rocky Mountains.

I also wonder just what condition their trails are really in. But I haven't hiked there enough to really compare.

[adamschneider]

Tea Party hikers are hilarious...

The Tea Party is hilarious in general.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

The Adventure Pass in California is simply a money grab since it's only in the NF's surrounding the greater LA area, which happens to have a massive population. The good stuff in Cali, like the Inyo NF, has no parking fees. I've done a fair bit of hiking in Montana and Idaho. While those states have small populations, they have fairly massive road and trail networks to maintain just like here. They may have less timber than Washington and Oregon, but it's not like there's none there. And population density of state doesn't necessarily have much to do with how many hikers are on the trails. People come from a long way away to hike in the Northern Rockies. So...I'm still waiting for an answer that actually makes sense.

[Koda]

maybe its incorrect to claim its illegal? Case law decides one case that then sets precedence for future cases? Maybe there is something unique about designated recreation areas but my take is they cannot charge the public if the public is not using the services provided by the fee even if they park there.

What I’m curious about is what has changed that federal taxes no longer cover caring for the public land? Has the USFS added that many new trails since then?

[olderthanIusedtobe]

I did a quick perusal of various National Forests back east. While there aren't nearly as many back there, they do have some. For the most part no listed day use fees for recreating there. If you want to talk about population density, everything in the Western states pales by comparison to to the East Coast and some of the Great Lakes area. There must be a very high volume of hikers on some of those trails back there. I seem to remember before the NWFP got forced on us, they tried something similar in Vermont. The people there simply revolted against it, and it quickly went away.

[retired jerry]

"What I’m curious about is what has changed that federal taxes no longer cover caring for the public land? Has the USFS added that many new trails since then?"

Same here

I think they used to fund trails off of sales of timber

And they made a bunch of trails a long time ago, like by the CCC, that must have been funded by income tax?

So, why don't they sell so many trees now? Is it dastardly environmentalists? Or did they used to cut more trees than was sustainable and now there aren't as many trees ready for harvest?

Same thing with the Oregon and California lands timber harvest that paid for rural counties. Now there isn't nearly as much harvest and trees so those counties don't have enough funds for schools, police,... But that isn't hiking related

[kepPNW]

I did a quick perusal of various National Forests back east. While there aren't nearly as many back there, they do have some. For the most part no listed day use fees for recreating there. If you want to talk about population density, everything in the Western states pales by comparison to to the East Coast and some of the Great Lakes area. There must be a very high volume of hikers on some of those trails back there.

Definitely no recreation fees of any sort in most of the Superior National Forest of northern MN. But there is a fee system for overnighting in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

(Minnesota also has a $5/day-$25/yr state parks single-vehicle sticker, too, and lots of good hiking trails are in state parks there.)

[drm]

So...I'm still waiting for an answer that actually makes sense.

Yes they have forests there, but they are not the same kind or type of forests. I continue to contend that our forests create a much greater challenge for keeping trails open, as in the case I mentioned, Quartz Creek. 13 year living in Colorado and it is hard for me to imagine a trail ever degrading into that condition. Except maybe a bit in the SW part of the state, they just don't have trees like that.

As to population, the number of boots using a trail does have an impact, switchback cutting, tread wear. But I don't expect it is nearly as important as the weather.

But despite my years in Colorado, most of my experience is here. I work (i.e. volunteer) both with volunteer organizations like the WTA as well as the paid folks in the Forest Service, and all of them that I have talked to think that the NWFP fees are important to keeping our trails open - to the degree they are.

If we want to understand the difference, we would need to put FS folks here in the same room with FS folks in some place without that support to see what the difference is. I would be very interested in hearing the results of that discussion, but my inclination is to believe the people who do it day-in and day-out when they say that NWFP fees are important to their trail maintenance efforts.

Jerry - What I have heard about timber fees is that they often didn't even cover the cost of FS road-building, though that might vary by region. I don't think that timber harvesting supported trails. I think an increase in wildfires is a big factor, but in general FS budgets have declined. When you talk to long-time FS employees, they will mention the good old days when they had money to do education efforts in schools, attend third-party conferences, etc. They don't do any of that any more.

I did some searching and found these numbers for some recent total annual Forest Service budget:
2011
$6,130,218

2012
$5,903,702

2014
$5,607,171

[Koda]

I work (i.e. volunteer) both with volunteer organizations like the WTA as well as the paid folks in the Forest Service, and all of them that I have talked to think that the NWFP fees are important to keeping our trails open - to the degree they are.
...... my inclination is to believe the people who do it day-in and day-out when they say that NWFP fees are important to their trail maintenance efforts.

Id like to hear an official statement from either org. Weve read the reports in the other thread that show where the NWFP funds go and none are going to trail maintenance....

Id be suspicious of what they're saying otherwise....