Nothing gets people grumbling quite like rising prices. But it’s
hard to argue with the benefits of increasing entry fees at
Pinnacles National Monument.
Nothing gets people grumbling quite like rising prices. But it’s hard to argue with the benefits of increasing entry fees at Pinnacles National Monument.
The National Park Service has proposed raising the cost of admission at San Benito County’s only national park from $5 to $10 per vehicle, effective Jan. 1, 2008. At the same time, entry fees for individual visitors arriving without motor vehicles will go from $3 to $5 and the price of an annual pass allowing unlimited visits to Pinnacles will increase from $15 to $20.
Since 80 percent of entry fees collected each year are kept by the park where they are paid, the amount Pinnacles will take in under the new fee proposal could be nearly double over what the park has received in years past.
That means more money for trail maintenance and improvements, more money for repairs to park facilities such as the historic Bear Gulch Visitor Center, and more money for upgrades at the newly acquired Pinnacles Campground.
Overall, federal funding for national parks has declined since 2000. A lot of maintenance and facilities improvement projects have been put off at Pinnacles and elsewhere by parks managers dealing with budget cuts. Reasonable user fee increases are a reasonable way to put needed money for this work back into the coffers.
At Pinnacles, Superintendent Eric Brunnemann proposes immediately putting the money to work by building new fire rings and adding picnic tables at Pinnacles Campground. He also plans to make the Bear Gulch Visitor Center and the popular Bench Trail more wheelchair accessible. And the visitor center, hand-built of native stone back in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, would get needed roof repairs.
Longer term, there are plans for an alternative transportation system that would ease traffic and parking congestion inside the park. The system could eventually be extended to neighboring cities such as Hollister, 25 miles north of the Pinnacles, and could help boost park use.
Pinnacles is not alone in raising entry fees. At Yosemite National Park, the entry charge is going up from $20 to $25 per vehicle next year.
Even with the fee increase, a visit to Pinnacles – where rare California condors fly free and springtime wildflowers bring a blaze of color to the hillsides – would remain a relative bargain.
That $10 per-vehicle charge allows all occupants of the car into the park, meaning that Mom and Dad and the kids can still spend a day communing with nature for considerably less than the cost of taking in a movie or treating the family to lunch at even a fast-food restaurant. For those planning frequent visits to Pinnacles, the $20 annual pass makes the deal even sweeter.
Thousands of people enjoy visiting Pinnacles National Monument every year. The cost is going to go up, but the improvements that the higher entry fees will help fund should make those visits even more enjoyable.
