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polarwid
Apr 22, 2002, 4:28 PM
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Let me know your opinion on this...
You never know if we can make a difference. The fee has gone up every couple of years...
Excerpted from 21 APRIL 2002 ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS
Rescue fee blatantly unfair to Mount McKinley climbers
Craig Medred
Outdoors
Drop your snowmobile through a crevasse on the Spencer Glacier and the Alaska National Guard comes to your rescue with a helicopter from Anchorage.
The cost?
Nothing.
Snowboard yourself into trouble in the far southeast corner of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve and the guard is there again to save the day.
Cost to the rescued?
Nothing.
Run your boat aground on some rocks off the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula and the U.S. Coast Guard will arrive to help either by boat from Homer or helicopter from Kodiak.
The cost of this service?
Nothing.
Why is it then that the climbers who head for Mount McKinley have to pay a $150-a-head rescue fee?
I am not one of those people naive enough to believe the world can ever be a perfectly fair place, but this fee imposed on McKinley mountaineers is so blatantly unfair someone needs to slap the National Park Service and Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, upside the head with it.
The inequality would be bad enough if it simply applied to those rescued on McKinley, if they -- unlike anyone else rescued in Alaska -- simply had to pay a flat $150 fee at the time a helicopter delivered them to safety.
But the McKinley fee goes well beyond that.
The McKinley fee is charged of every McKinley climber -- not just those rescued. The vast majority of the more than 1,000 people who now attempt to reach the summit of America's tallest peak every year never ask for any help from anybody.
Yet all must pay the fee.
That would make the fee look a lot like an "access fee," wouldn't it? But we're not supposed to have access fees in Alaska's federal parks.
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act clearly states that "no fees shall be charged for entrance or admission to any unit of the National Park System located in Alaska."
It's right there in Section 203 if you want to look it up, and the last time I checked a map, 20,320-foot Mount McKinley was smack-dab in the middle of the Denali National Park and Preserve.
The Park Service, the federal agency that instituted the Mount McKinley fee with the prodding of Murkowski, tries to dodge the legal requirement by calling the fee everything but an access fee.
Over the years, it has been called a rescue fee, a management fee, a clean-up fee, a cost-recovery fee and who knows what else. This is sort of like calling a duck a downy water bird or a web-footed fowl or quaking, winged flier so as to avoid having to call it a duck.
This is a duck of one feather or another.
What we have here is either a McKinley access fee, which should by law be illegal, or a grossly unfair rescue fee imposed on one small group.
I can understand the Park Service grabbing for the fee. Like all federal agencies, the Park Service is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies grow by sucking up money. The Park Service has steadily grown itself into the McKinley rescue business.
It now has a sizeable Takleetna bureaucracy with jobs to protect. It has a host of seasonal mountain rangers on the payroll and a contract of about a quarter million dollars to keep a special rescue helicopter stationed in Talkeetna to assist those rangers.
I know some of these people. They are good folks. Some of them have, on a regular basis, put themselves in life-threatening situations that left people actually happy to hear the words, "Don't worry. We're from the government, and we're here to help you."
Most of them like their jobs and want to keep them. So I can empathize with their desire for any sort of revenue-generating rescue, climbing, poop removal, access, just-give-me-your-money fee for McKinley.
Murkowski is a different matter. The state's junior senator is supposed to be a conservative -- one of those people who believe less government is better government. But he's out there acting like some way-left liberal who hasn't seen a problem more government can't solve.
Murkowski has repeatedly pushed the Park Service to do more -- to consider billing climbers for rescues in addition to making them pay the existing fee, to consider checking climbers for valid medical insurance, to keep running climbers through indoctrination programs.
All of those things, of course, require bureaucrats, and more bureaucrats require more money. Even as you read this, the Park Service is considering additional fees for climbing McKinley.
Which would be perfectly fair if the same rules applied to everyone else in the state. But they don't.
What the politicians and bureaucrats wouldn't think about doing to large, vocal minorities, they'll happily do to this small, quiet minority.
Outdoors editor Craig Medred is an opinion columnist. He can be reached at cmedred@adn.com or 907 257-4588.
[ This Message was edited by: polarwid on 2002-05-22 12:28 ]
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bradhill
Apr 22, 2002, 5:06 PM
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HAHAHA! Murkowski is a "small government conservative". Bwahahaha! Nope. Alaska would collapse without Federal subsidy. It takes in WAAAAY more money than it pays out in Federal taxes. Stevens and Murkowski are all about getting as much Federal money into their state as possible and creating as many jobs as possible, and they're GOOD at it.
Look at it this way: People who get rescued snowmachining, boating, etc., are mostly Alaskans. People who climb Denali:
Are mostly from out of state and a high percentage from outside the US
Climb and leave, contributing little to the local economy outside of a $600 flight from Talkeetna
This isn't like Chamonix where people are staying at hotels, eating at restaurants, buying lift tickets, etc. Even if they have to wait in Talkeetna for a week to fly out, most climbers just camp for free on the riverbank.
That $150 is a way to get these people to make a contribution to the local economy and create some jobs. Frankly, I think it's fair. Rescues on Denali are frequent and expensive, and more often than not it's foreign climbers who underestimate the mountain and get in trouble, and its not like they're paying taxes to support the NPS.
If you really find the fee irksome, maybe it could be worked out by an "incentive" system like they use for rescues in Yosemite. If we have to fly you out for frostbite and you didn't bring plastics or overboots, you have to pay. If we have to fish you out of a crevasse because you were travelling unroped, you have to pay. If you end up at the bottom of the Orient Express because you never needed an ice axe in Germany, you get charged, etc.
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awsclimber
Apr 22, 2002, 5:18 PM
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Would you rather be stuck in an unplanned bivy at 16 while they checked your account for the 7-8000 it would cost for an individual rescue.........only for them to say "hey sorry bud, maybe you should saved for another two years just in case this happened"
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blacksamba
Apr 22, 2002, 5:24 PM
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Hey polarwid i was going to PM you about this article I thought it was dead on.
Ben
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polarwid
Apr 22, 2002, 6:07 PM
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I too think it is dead on, either charge EVERYONE or charge no one, and that goes for ALL of the NPS services in the country. Why be discriminated against? Of course, maybe because I am currently an ALASKAN climber, I think it is unfair, but I have to agree with BRADHILL's points too. There just needs to be some continuity. It does SEEM unfair...
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ryesarah
Apr 22, 2002, 6:20 PM
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standing ovation and a big hoorah for both people stating their issue regarding the fee and Denali climbers.....the comments were both insightful and informative. I've never heard of this issue, but being from Canada I'm either too drunk to care or too polite to say anything....I don't vote (and don't tell me I should vote because I don't believe that any candidate will do what they say they will anyway...) so I have no right to go into a rant about how shi**y the government is to everyone (don't get me started on Canadian government)but I do wish you luck and if you need someone to come stand on the picket line....give me a call. I'll be there with bells on.
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bradhill
Apr 22, 2002, 7:13 PM
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How about making it a one-time "safety training fee" instead of a permit fee? Just like the video you have to watch once, charge climbers a one-shot lifetime fee for climbing on the Denali massif. That way the foreign peak baggers will be contributing their fair share to rescue costs, but local climbers who return to the area often (and are therefore less likely on any given climb to need rescue) don't have to pay so much.
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polarwid
Apr 22, 2002, 9:48 PM
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Brad, you are a genius...
Too bad the numbnuts who run NPS aren't. We should run this up the flagpole and see what happens!
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bradhill
Apr 22, 2002, 10:35 PM
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A Sourdough Sit-In! Get out your stinkiest old polypro longjohns and socks and invade the Talkeetna ranger station until they relent.
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jmlangford
Apr 30, 2002, 6:07 AM
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I knew I shouldn't have clicked on this forum and now I am pissed!
This is another example of our socialist government asking everybody to pay for the numbnutedness of a few!. For example...everybody pays taxes so a few lazy bums don't have to work...i.e...WORK HARDER, PEOPLE ON WELFARE DEPEND ON YOU.
I am getting sick and tired of having to pay for other peoples stupidity. What the Sam Hill does our tax dollars get us anyway?! Locally, they implemented a $5/day recreation pass to use frickin' FOREST SERVICE land! You can drive through it but if you stop to take a piss in the woods then by gosh you have to pay. I have refused to do this for years and I have yet to pay a cent!
I'll probably never climb Denali but this has set me off bigtime!
I could go on forever but I'll stop by recomending that people join the American Alpine Club and they will be insured for rescue on all peaks up to 6000 meters and for a nominal extra fee on peaks over 6000 meters.
Then if the brain-dead morons running the NPS and the US Govt. would use the not-so-common common sense they would allow those climbers to be exempt from that stupid "rescue" tax! Another frickin' tax is what it is!
[ This Message was edited by: jmlangford on 2002-04-29 23:20 ]
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boretribe
Apr 30, 2002, 6:53 AM
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jmlangford I suggest you keep to climbing issues instead of your political tantrums/rants. Do you seriously believe that all people (or at least a majority of people) on welfare are lazy bums? What does this have to do with the subject at hand anyhow?
As far as our government being socialist, you're not making sense. A socialist government would make public lands free and accessible to everyone regardless of economic abilities and use (yes) our tax dollars instead of the forest demo fees (which I too refuse to pay). A socialist government would not charge one group (climbers) 'rescue' fees and not others but would use those tax dollars to pay for the rescues. A fine example of a socialist system our government does employ is with fire and police departments, paid with tax dollars and free to anyone who needs the service.
Please think before you rant.
As far as the topic at hand I think bradhill's suggestion makes the most sense if fees are to be collected.
I case you're wondering I am a socialist libertarian, a true democrat (that's with a small 'd')
[ This Message was edited by: boretribe on 2002-04-29 23:54 ]
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graniteboy
Apr 30, 2002, 2:39 PM
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The fee on The Big Mountain is NOT a rescue fee. It was imposed so the NPS could pay for that COOL granite MANSION they're housed in these days. They used to be in a funky little log cabin over by the fairview.....
BUT: here' the real trick: they do not charge to climb any of the other peaks in the range.
So pipe down, get your ass to the range, and climb huntington, hunter, dan beard, mooses ass, whatever. And you don't hafta pay. Of course, there's always those who want a bright, shiny, "Denali Belt buckle" to show their friends. I suspect that this is Really why climbing on the big mountain costs 150$. It's because most the people on the big mountain will PAY it. Cause they don't really want to be on the mountain, they just want the "belt buckle".
You know, though, it's MUCH more prestigious to be a Ranger on the mountain than to be a tourist climber.
SOOOOO: you can always BUY a "JUNIOR RANGER" pin for about a buck, and impress your friends MUCH more than if you told them "daaahhhlings, I summited the tallllest mountain in North America""....
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jmlangford
Apr 30, 2002, 4:24 PM
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Bore...Of course I don't think all people that are on welfare are lazy bums. That was just me venting. However, when I see a lot of people having to pay for the rescue of a few, I think that is very unfair. I just don't know where all my tax dollars go. Every time I want to drive over Tioga Pass in Yosemite, I get yanked for another $20, just to drive through. $150/person? That is a lot of dough! I agree with graniteboy, I'll bet an audit would show that the money, once collected, disappears into that big black hole called the general fund and doesn't exactly make it to the rescue teams. I don't know that for a fact...just a thought. Sorry if my rant offended you, but I sure feel better now!
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polarwid
Apr 30, 2002, 4:51 PM
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To avoid confusion on this thread, you can read about mountaineering RULES AND REGULATIONS on DENALI along with the REGISTRATION PROCEDURES. These pages have the "REASONS" for the fee. Seems to me that more snow machiners and trekkers get rescued in ALASKA National Parks than climbers, so I think they should be charged also. Besides, who needs a GIANT basecamp set up and another at 14,700? What ever happened to the ADVENTURE!!!
Here is the link--MOUNTAINEERING IN DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE
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bradhill
Apr 30, 2002, 6:09 PM
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The general use fees collected by all National Parks go into the Federal Government's general fund (not even the NPS general fund- the whole general federal budget pool). The budget back to those parks is allocated by a political process in Congress. That means that the popularity or use rates of a park have nothing to do with how it is funded. This has led, in other parks, to popular areas that should more than pay for their upkeep in use fees being closed.
However, the recently instituted special use fees such as this one, in contrast, stay 80% in the Park where they were collected. This means that the money collected for rescue fees on Denali is spent at Denali, if that will calm some of the bile in this thread.
I am ABSOLUELY NOT in favor of "marketizing" our National Parks as for-profit enterprises or concessions to be operated by private corporations, which I think a majority of these fees are intended to be a foot in the door for. Our parks are natural areas to be preserved for future generations to enjoy unspoiled, not f**king Disneyland development opportunties. There are enough traffic jams and parking lots in this world as it is. If this makes you as sick as I, keep in mind it's "conservatives" who are trying to make this giveaway of our heritage to corporate America when next you vote.
I do think that given the special nature of climbing on Denali, that most climbers rescued don't pay US taxes, and that the money is spent in the park on climbing support, this one fee is fair. I'd agree that it should be waived if you can you show that you have other rescue insurance from the AAC or similar, but the Park Service probably has no legal authority to impose anything but a general fee on everybody.
And please, the FY 2003 budget for Denali is $11M. They're not rolling in dough. That is 0.05% of the NPS budget. They're not living in mansions and driving gold plated Range Rovers around. Get a life. There are WAY larger and FAR less legitimate government expenditures to get your underwear in a knot over.
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jmlangford
Apr 30, 2002, 8:24 PM
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Bradhill...Thank you for an informative post. I have calmed down considerably since my rants! It is good to know that the $ is going to the park...However, I STILL don't like the whole idea of everybody having to pay for the indescretions of a few.
Thanks again.
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polarwid
May 6, 2002, 10:03 PM
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This is Senator Murkowski's response to the article this thread is based on:
(EXCERPTED FROM 6 MAY 2002 ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS)
-------------------------------------------
Should a few McKinley climbers hog big chunk of Denali park's budget?
For three years, most recently on April 21, Craig Medred has objected to my efforts to have the National Park Service even consider some fee increase to offset the growing costs of climbing Mt. McKinley.
Since 1995, the Park Service has charged $150 for a climbing permit. This "user" fee barely offsets the costs of multilingual education guides for the climbers. None of that money covers the roughly $1.1 million that the Park Service spends on Denali mountain rescues. Admittedly, funding climber education should increase safety and reduce rescue costs, but none of the $160,000 in fee revenues actually went to defray the cost of the McKinley base camp, high-altitude helicopter, military support or search-and-rescue personnel.
As a fiscal conservative, I believe people normally should pay for the government they get. A hiker in Denali pays through the park's entrance fee (legal because the park predated passage of the Alaska Lands Act). A boater off Kenai pays for Coast Guard rescue costs through their fuel taxes, as do pilots in downed aircraft. But mountaineers don't come close to reimbursing the cost of their more risky behavior. I have never proposed that climbers pay the entire cost of a rescue, but I have questioned whether a small minority should claim 40 times more of the Park Service's Denali budget than the average visitor.
-- Sen. Frank H. Murkowski
[ This Message was edited by: polarwid on 2002-05-22 12:30 ]
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bobtheboulderer
May 22, 2002, 5:53 PM
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Looks like the fee came in handy for THESE GUYS.
[ This Message was edited by: bobtheboulderer on 2002-05-22 10:53 ]
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polarwid
May 29, 2002, 5:32 PM
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Yet another Anchorage response to the RESCUE FEE article...
Excerpted from the 29 MAY 2002 ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS...
Instead of raising rescue fee, lets cut McKinley infrastructure
Sen. Frank Murkowski has increasingly voiced concern over the rising costs associated with performing rescues on Mount McKinley ("Should McKinley climbers hog big chunk of Denali park's budget?" May 6). I disagree with the senator's impulse to target a specific user group with increased fees. I am also a fiscal conservative yet believe another effective solution exists: Reduce the unwanted rescue infrastructure on Denali.
The public will shudder at this concept. However, I am an avid mountaineer having participated in more than 25 major expeditions throughout Alaska and Canada including McKinley. Climbers did not request the two staffed rescue camps or the Talkeetna rescue helicopter. In fact, today's ease of initiating a rescue promotes risky behavior and perpetuates an abnormally high rescue rate on McKinley. What about climbers truly in need of rescue? Self-rescue works throughout the remainder of Alaska's big mountains; why not McKinley, too?
Still, if the senator is adamant that these unwanted amenities are necessary, why not enable the Park Service to accept payment for rescues? I own a rescue insurance policy, yet ironically, the Park Service has no provision to accept reimbursement from this or any policy. I couldn't pay if I wanted to.
I believe in paying for services I request. The problem is, the McKinley rescue infrastructure is extravagant, redundant and most importantly unwanted.
-- David Hart
board member -- Mountaineering Club of Alaska
Anchorage
[ This Message was edited by: polarwid on 2002-05-29 10:32 ]
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rollingstone
Aug 1, 2002, 11:40 PM
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I suggest everyone interested in Polarwid's concerns read pp. 11-13 in Jonathon Waterman's book In the Shadow of Denali. He addresses this very issue, and relates it to the events of the 1992 season. Recently, I spoke with Mike Gauthier at Mount Rainier National Park. It should be noted that he is the head climbing ranger there, has organized a great group of climbing rangers, and oversees responsibility for 11,000+ climbers a season. The "fee" for Rainier is $15.00, which climbers are told is to help pay for waste removal. Gauthier is adamantly opposed to "rescue fees" because he know that climbers will expect it, as Waterman notes in his book.(see p. 12). Murkowski does not look at all the other users within the entire NPS system who require assistance, but who consume a far greater amount of budget in their Search and Rescues. Climbers, per se, seem to bear the brunt of this in many climbing areas. Does anyone know if Rocky Mountain National Park has this same administrative problem??
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wildtrail
Aug 2, 2002, 12:02 AM
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A buck fifty? (150) You'll be sorry to see the helicopter bill when you get it! I think that is pretty cheap to climb the largest and one of the most dangerous mountains on the planet. Only if that is all it took...
I wouldn't complain about the fee. If it were, say, 2,000 I'd be bitching my butt off.
Steve
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coldclimb
Aug 2, 2002, 1:18 AM
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"A boater off Kenai pays for Coast Guard rescue costs through their fuel taxes, as do pilots in downed aircraft. But mountaineers don't come close to reimbursing the cost of their more risky behavior."
How can he say that? Commercial fishing is just about the most dangerous thing there is. Way more people die doing that than climbing.
I personally think that those who actually use the money by getting rescued should be the only ones to pay any sort of fee. It's common sense, if you take something from a store, you pay for it, but if you don't, you don't pay! This is forcing many people to pay $150 for nothing. I personally don't like being extorted like that.
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