Why are Wilderness Users Opposed to Recreation Fees?

Hikers, backpackers, and other wilderness and backcountry users feel that they are unfairly targeted by the Federal recreation fee program.

Consumptive users such as mining, ranching, and logging get Federal subsidies in the form of fees that are far below market values, or in the case of hard rock mining, non-existent. In contrast, recreational users are expected to pay nearly the full costs of maintaining trails, trailheads, as well as fee stations and the cost of hiring rangers to enforce the fee system.

At the same time, the Forest Service budget for trail construction and maintenance has been cut so that the agency expects volunteers (that's us, the recreational users) to maintain the trails!

Almost everyone understands and agrees with fees being charged for use of developed picnic areas and campgrounds, as well as for access to national parks and monuments. In these places, the fees go to support specific amenities, such as campsites, tables, restrooms, visitor centers, and ranger programs.

But paying fees to access primitive land, where the only amenities are trails and signs, runs against the grain. Everyone benefits from public lands- the watershed value alone is worth taxpayer support. In fact, one of the primary reasons for establishing the national forests was to protect watersheds. Most of the population of the western United States gets its water from public land watersheds. Other benefits of the public lands include wildlife, view protection, and open space.

Cracks Appear in the Recreation Fee System

In November 2009, a hiker received a citation for the U.S. Forest Service for parking at a remote trailhead on the Coconino National Forest without a Red Rock Pass. He defended himself in court with a provision of the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) that prohibits fees from being charged at undeveloped trail heads and sites. On September 14, 2010, the Federal magistrate agreed and dismissed the case. As a result, the Forest Service is, at least temporarily, not charging fees at undeveloped trailheads and along unpaved roads while they develop a new fee plan.

The Coconino National Forest, which includes the Flagstaff and Sedona areas, has been charging recreation fees in a large area defined as the Red Rock Area since the controversial Fee Demo program. Even though the provisions of FLREA are different from Fee Demo and specifically exclude fees being charged at undeveloped sites, the Forest Service continued charging these fees in the Red Rock Area despite strong opposition. The Sedona City Council is opposed as well as many recreationists. 

For more information on the case including the court documents, see

http://westernslopenofee.org/index2.php?display=yes&pageid=33

Recreation Fees are Working!

They are driving people away from the National Forests in droves. According to a US Forest Service report on forest visitation for the period 2001-2008, forest visits to nearly all National Forests declined. In the northwest, visits dropped by 37% and in the northeast, by 42%. Other National Forest regions dropped by 5 to 16%. The only region with a increase in visitors was Arizona and New Mexico, with a gain of 3%. The average change in visitation over the entire National Forest system was -16%. And this happened during a period of steady population increase and a good economy.

While there are many factors at work here, including a general loss of interest in the outdoors among young people more absorbed in electronic entertainment, it surely can't be a coincidence that National Forest visits have been dropping during the same period that access fees were introduced.

If this trend continues, the fee program will fail because no one will be buying passes. Then we'll have to go back to old-fashioned public funding of the national lands by the taxpayers- the same taxpayers who benefit from all the resources provided by the National Forests- water for cities, clean air, wood, wildlife, minerals, and recreation. 

For more information on the federal fee program, go to the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition Web site.

When GPS Doesn't Work

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is an incredible tool for the outdoor adventurer. But like any tool, GPS has limitations. As a hiking guide author, I've had readers complain that the trail distances in some of my books are too short. When I ask how they know, the answer is always "I measured it with my GPS."

You can't. Why? Because GPS isn't accurate enough. GPS receivers measure distance (and speed) by taking a series of position fixes as you travel and measuring the distance between them. Trail GPS receivers all have the same accuracy, 10 meters or 33 feet.  This means that as you walk, at about two or three miles an hour, the GPS position fixes are not at your exact location, but up to 33 feet away (actually, the error can be even more when the sky is partially obscured or the satellite geometry is poor.)

So, instead of position fixes that are like a series of dots along your path, they are randomly scattered around your route of travel. GPS measures the distance between each of the these position fixes and comes up with a total distance that is always greater than the actual length of the trail. How much? My field tests have shown errors as much as 50%. In other words, GPS calculates the length of a 10-mile trail as 15 miles. More typical errors are in the range of 5 to 20%.

A quick way to demonstrate the effect of these cumulative errors is to turn your GPS on, place it where it can get a position fix, and then erase the track log and clear the data on the odometer page. Leave it on for a few hours without moving it and check the the odometer page to see how far the receiver thinks it's traveled, and how fast.

How can you accurately measure trail distance? One way is with differential GPS (DGPS), which uses a GPS receiver and differential transmitter placed on a known surveyed point. The DGPS unit compares the difference between its actual location and the GPS computed location and broadcasts the correction to DGPS-equipped receivers within range. DGPS is not practical for recreational hikers and is used mainly by surveyors and scientists doing field work.

The most accurate practical method to measure trail distance is the one used by the U.S. Forest Service and other land management agencies: Roll a trail wheel over the trail. Trail wheels work just like a cyclometer on a bicycle. Knowing the circumference of the wheel, a counter adds up the total distance rolled. Recreational hikers are not going to bother with this method, though mountain bikers can certainly use it on trails open to bicycles. That's how I measure trails for my mountain biking guidebooks.

The next most accurate method is to trace the trail on a large scale topographic map. In the pre-computer, pre-GPS days, that was done with a map wheel on a paper map. The results depend on how carefully you were willing to follow the twists and turns of the trail. I found this method to be about 10% short of the trail distance as measured with a cyclometer. Now that we have digital topo maps, we can trace the trail on the screen using the mapping program's freehand route tool. My tests, compared with cyclometer measurements, have shown this method to be about 2% short.

This discussion applies to walking speeds. If you are moving faster, such as riding a bike or paddling a boat, the 33-foot errors are not as large a factor and the amount of error is much less.

In summary, the only accurate way to use a trail GPS is measure trail distance is to record a track in the field, import the GPS track to your digital topo map, and then trace over the GPS track with the program's freehand route tool. Don't try to measure the distance of the imported GPS track in your digital map program. The position errors are present in the downloaded track, even though you can't zoom in enough to see them.

Ultimate Reality Show

Welcome! The purpose of this blog is to promote the ultimate reality show, the wilderness, and to explore issues relating to self-propelled outdoor sports, especially hiking and backpacking.

I welcome comments on my posts as well as on any of my published books. See my website, www.brucegrubbs.com.