Does Old Rag Need Rec.gov? Tell the NPS tomorrow in Zoom meeting.
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- Officials at Shenandoah National Park will be hosting a Zoom meeting on Monday, April 17 at 7pm (1900 hrs) to discuss the results of their Timed Entry Pilot Program on the park’s popular Old Rag Mountain Trail.
Documents show that the number of daily hikers met the limit of 800 per day less than 10% of the pilot, during the 9 month test period. Moreover, all but one of the days that did reach this number were weekend days, showing that at the very least, this restrictive system needn't be a weekday entrance policy.
The question before public land users is whether such numbers warrant a restrictive entrance system that paid a private corporation nearly $100,000 for the service of providing the reservation portal for just this one trail?
Where does this system stop? How long before these polices spread to other hikes that do not need restrictions. Allowing this pilot program to continue sets a very dangerous precedent for the future of trails on which numbers do not meet the numbers that were predicted.
Here are links to both the Zoom meeting, and to the Pilot Study results from 2022, and just for good measure, a similar "pre-proposal" paper from 2020.
Zoom: us06web.zoom.u...
If the links doesn't work, go to the NPS Meeting Notices link page: parkplanning.n...
Pilot Program Results 2022: parkplanning.n...
Pilot Proposal Study 2020: parkplanning.n...
Those who would like to send a message to their elected representatives in the House and the Senate can now visit the Democracy IO link below, which provides a quick, painless method by which you can find and message your reps in a matter of seconds.
Just go to the link below, as well as the Google Doc linked below that, copy the FLREA Letter to Reps in Google Docs, then paste that into the comment section in the Democracy IO link. This takes less than two minutes, and you'll rest well, knowing that you took action to affect change for the benefit of future generations of our people.
Democracy.io: democracy.io/#!/
Googel Doc - FLREA - Letter to Reps: docs.google.co...
Here is Matt Stoller's November article on the Rec.gov arrangement: mattstoller.su....
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Meeting start in 10 min on ZOOM. Everyone should attend
Those who Define "Congestion & Enjoyable Hike " are the true Authority...
The buggers are privatizing from the inside, I tell ya' Todd. Thanks for the update, take care.
Have done that hike many times in all our years spent in VA. Definitely doesn't seem to add up does it? Appreciate all the effort you are putting into making people aware of this topic!
Hey Todd
Shenadoah IS my NP. Live about 30 miles from it.
The reason why the entrance only had one ( even though that’s normally the case) is because there was some odd fire there a little ago. They are trying to fix the buildings. Right there at Thornton Gap. Right in the middle building which seemed to affect two of those boxes that rangers are in.
I got photo someone charged on our SNP photography page to prove.
Very rare and creepy for sure. Talked to the one ranger about it the other day.
Hmm I can’t post the photo here BUT I do have if you’d like to see it.
They really have overreached - Thank you for covering this and showing the data/charts/looks.
Thanks for your efforts in reading and disecting NPS documents and alerting us to the zoom tomorrow. I am on Pacific Time. Is the Zoom 7:00 (EST)?
Yes, so 4pm for you.
Starts in 8 min
Not following the money grab by Rec.gov. NPS defines access controls, are you suggesting that NPS creates controls to charge a buck simply to bring in $ for the concessionaire?
While I’m not familiar with Old Rag, it appears that the presence of a permit by its self reduce visitation?
In many instances NPS’ approach for years is out of line with their charter.
I imagine the park service would have to incur the cost rangers to enforce this/verify tickets. Seems like it would be just as easy to post someone at the trailhead(s) to keep a headcount and throttle the crowds accordingly.
So, if a person finds themselves in a National Park, do they need to "show their papers" to prove they have "permission" to be there?
In the meeting now. They seem to be avoiding the difficult questions.
Yes, they didn't really seem to suggest that they had a real direction in mind, other than to extend the pilot program again.
Interesting that they sold 95,444 tickets, but then only counted 86,000 hikers. Thanks for your attendance.
@@theparkjunkie would have been nice to have seen more than 36 people attend.
Todd, Park Junkie, where’d you go? Miss your updates. Hope you’re alright man. Regards, BT
Can’t help but wonder if they are not reaching the limits bc people won’t pay to hike public lands or maybe they’ve never been that crowded. Feels bad that they might price citizenry out of us it the lands then later they close them under the guise that they were not being used then they sell our land, which isn’t theirs to sell, and hi might they sell to? I’m sure it won’t be transparent 🤔
Hi Todd 🙂
Oh and yes I disagree about Old Rag as well.
Done it once the full thing but am to short w/o help.
So I’ve gone from the back side up to the top.
I made sure to go up the day RIGHT before free season ended for Old Rag. Was a beautiful day. :)
I won’t give em my buck anymore!!
Nicely done!
The problem at Old Rag is the log jam of cars at the trail head during busy times.
I didn't go into that Tim, but look at the document and it does show stats from the parking lot. They have 3 lots, holding a total just shy of 300 vehicles, 150 of which are held in an overflow lot. The study reports on page 22 that the parking never reached capacity, and only on 47 days during the season did traffic even require the overflow lot. 41 of such days were weekend days. This leaves 234 days during this season that did not even require the overflow lot. That's a lot of leftover parking....
Good to know!
Just using common sense here, I would think the Park has historical entrance records which would have been used in order to establish that threshold number. So to your point what’s the purpose of extending the paid timed entrance fee. Who’s running this pilot program, Booze Allen or the Park Managers? Hmmmm…
Such BS, but more ammunition against rec gov. Many parks are sadly understaffed, and possibly undergated.
BS!!! Keep exposing!