Colorado Considering Fees for Fourteeners

The U.S. Forest Service, strapped for cash like most other government agencies, is considering a plan to charge hikers to climb some of Colorado’s most popular peaks. Nobody likes to see costs go up, and instituting a fee for a formerly free activity will be especially unpopular. This, though, is a proposal that is worth thinking all the way through.
Colorado is famous for its “fourteeners,” and people flock here to climb them. By the most commonly used measure, Colorado has 53 of the nation’s 88 independent peaks above 14,000 feet. Most of the tallest and most challenging are in Alaska; California has 14 fourteeners, and Washington has two.

Geography and weather have made this state a Mecca for mountaineers, and 14 of the mountains that draw them are in the San Juans. The current proposal calls for fee access only to four peaks in the Sangre de Cristos in south Colorado.

The economic contributions of people who come to Colorado to bag fourteeners, plus their less lofty peers, are noticeable, and no one wants to risk losing them. On the other hand, their spending is noticeable partly because mountain-climbing is not a cheap sport. Good boots start at well more than $100 and wear out fast, and that is just the beginning of the gear. Although hiking is a human-powered endeavor, almost all hikes and climbs involve a drive to a trailhead. In other words, most serious mountain hikers are not broke; $10 or $20 per peak will not deter many of them.

Kitty Benzar, president of the Western Slope No Fee Coalition in Durango, told The Associated Press, “The Forest Service didn’t create the mountains, and they have no right to charge access to them.”

Benzar would have been on firmer ground if she had been able to say that the Forest Service did not spend any money on the mountains, but that is not true. The Forest Service is responsible for the management of the mountains, and that management does not come free. As elevation and pitch increase, so does the cost of resource management.

Forest Service officials say half a million hikers climb Colorado’s fourteeners each year. That is substantial traffic, and it does leave traces. That recreationists should be the ones to bear more of the costs associated with maintaining and protecting the places only they go is a policy in line with current popular anti-tax sentiment.

We would like to see a modified version of that sentiment. Because national forests belong to the public, they should be managed in a way that creates the fewest impediments to public use. That means no charges for a broad range of uses for typical low-impact visitors. Acquainting them with the beauty of public lands is the best way to ensure those lands will be protected. Millions of taxpaying Americans will never visit a national forest. At some point, though, the costs to the public of an individual’s intensive recreation become significantly disproportionate, and those users should expect to contribute more.

Mountain hikers will argue that math does not apply to them because they do not expect restrooms and trash collection at 14,000 feet. The coming debate should shed some light on whether they are right.

There is, however, another reason serious hikers might want to consider footing some of the bill: Respect. The biggest non-tax contributors to the Forest Service budget are extractive users, who do pay extra – although, in many cases, probably not enough. With relatively low fees, recreationists could buy some clout. That is an investment worth considering.

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