New recreation fees have incensed some Southern
Californians who say they don’t want to pick up the tab for playing
on public lands. A major point of conflict is what the Forest
Service calls its “Adventure Pass,” which is sold for trailhead
parking at $5 a day or $30 a year. In the Los Padres, Angeles,
Cleveland and San Bernardino national forests, failure to purchase
a pass from a local merchant or Forest Service office can result in
a $100 fine.
A nonprofit group, Keep the Sespe
Wild Committee, is fighting the Forest Service’s fee programs from
all sides. The group, which formed 12 years ago to protect the
Sespe Watershed in the Los Padres National Forest, changed its
focus in 1997 to include stiff opposition to forest fees. “Fees are
putting off enormous populations from visiting forests,” says
Alasdair Coyne of the committee, which is based in Ojai, Calif.
“California’s Adventure pass is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Coyne says the Forest Service has handed out
45,000 parking tickets since 1996, when the pass was created. His
nonprofit has helped to mobilize resistance by organizing
letter-writing campaigns, gathering signatures for petitions and
planning protests and boycotts against paying the forest user
fees.
They’ve also criticized Recreational
Equipment Inc. (REI) and Disney Enterprises Inc. for participating
in the design and implementation of the Adventure
Pass.
” Juniper Davis
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Fee fighters blast the Adventure Pass.
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