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Are you 62 years or older? If so, you may want to get over to your nearest National Park or Monument and purchase the lifetime Senior Pass for $10, before August 28th. The price is rising to $80 August 28th. In order to get the $10 price you need to buy it in person; online it will cost you $20.
Just passing this on because a great deal is about to get more expensive, and it is a lifetime pass, good for you and up to 3 others in your car.
You also get to bring in several guest at no additional charge.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigCreek
The good news is that this large price increase will help offset the considerable budget deficit and help with lots of badly needed, long-deferred maintenance in the parks, which are being loved to death by the public yet neglected by the government. Frustrating to see care for one of the best things our government ever did for us back-burnered, year after year, administration after administration.
Thank your luck stars if you get in and if they (NPs) stay open to the public.
All 401 national parks all across the country will be closed affecting as many as 715,000 national park visitors each day the government remains shutdown. (As a result of donations from states to the National Park Service, a few national parks are temporarily re-opened. Click here for more information.)
More than 21,000 national park staff members will be furloughed meaning critical resource management, including important scientific monitoring to protect endangered species, will not happen.
We had several retired friends who drove 2000 miles + in their RVs for a once / lifetime Civil War / NPS trip during that shutdown. Not impressed with the closed gates and pompous politicians.
I don't think this will generate more than a drop in the bucket toward maintaining and fixing our park system.
Sadly, every drop helps tremendously. The park system seems to be under attack currently. It was very sad when they closed a few years ago when there was no budget. Locally, it had a good size economic impact. It didn't wipe out any businesses, but if it had gone on for months, some areas would have had major issues.
Truthfully, a lifetime pass to all National Parks for only $10 was obscenely cheap! I never expected the price would stay that low until I reached age 62.
This. My husband I are a little too young to take advantage of the bargain-basement $10 lifetime pass. We don't resent it, because upkeep of the parks needs more $$$, especially with Bigmouth sticking his short fingers in everything just to ruin them.
Having to pay $80 for a lifetime pass is dirt cheap. The rest of us pay $80 per year.
Ironically, the $10 lifetime passers include most of the uberrich driving million-dollar "motorhomes" (they can't bear to call them RVs), towing $60k SUVs behind them. The impact they cause on roads should be reflected in their passes, which is why I think the age-classified pass makes less sense than a vehicular-classified pass. Your rig weighs as much as a bus or a cement truck--you should pay more, regardless of age.
All 401 national parks all across the country will be closed affecting as many as 715,000 national park visitors each day the government remains shutdown. (As a result of donations from states to the National Park Service, a few national parks are temporarily re-opened. Click here for more information.)
More than 21,000 national park staff members will be furloughed meaning critical resource management, including important scientific monitoring to protect endangered species, will not happen.
We had several retired friends who drove 2000 miles + in their RVs for a once / lifetime Civil War / NPS trip during that shutdown. Not impressed with the closed gates and pompous politicians.
I was actually in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when this happened. I deliberately drove into the park from adjacent Townsend, TN, that morning, intending to stick around until I was told to leave. I went to nearby Tremont, talked to the rangers at the station/ bookstore/education center - they told me I could stay until the Little River Road closed, and that the campgrounds were being emptied at Cade's Cove (at the end of the LRR) as we spoke. The rangers and other park employees were not at all happy about the closures and were very sympathetic with the visitors who were being forced out by the intransigence of Republican representatives.
By the time I drove back, barricades had been erected on the inbound lanes of the Little River Road, so that only exiting traffic could move, and a long line of cars and campers were being made to turn off and exit through Townsend. Must have been hard on those whose homes were not easily accessed from Townsend...they would have been forced to take a very round-about route home.
The trans-mountain road between Gatlinburg and Cherokee remained open, as it is a federal highway - but only emergency stops were allowed, and all other roads, picnic grounds, trails (except for the Appalachian Trail - too hard to get through-hikers off it, campgrounds, etc. were closed. I think I remember that the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway remained open due to a loophole of some kind, though the overlooks, picnic grounds, visitors centers, trails, and other attractions along the way were shut down (good luck shutting down an overlook!). The lease-owner of the Pisgah Inn (on the parkway near Asheville) put up a good fight, too, since the inn is not government operated and he was not a government employee.
Fortunately for me, this occurred at the end rather than at the beginning of my vacation, but it was unclear until the day before the closures exactly what would transpire. It was a very bad political move, as it angered people of all political persuasions, who (rightfully) viewed the national parks as theirs.
If such a move took place again, I am sure the public reaction would be the same, and Congress's phones would be ringing off the hook and their email-boxes filling up, while protestors would be demonstrating and occupying congressional home offices. So I doubt if anything so Draconian - and unpopular - is likely to happen again, unless things get even more conflicted that is presently the case.
I got mine last year at Shenandoah National Park when I just turned 62. I was not aware that I could obtain a life time senior pass. The park ranger at the entrance reminded me. Really nice of her.
I, too, don't get the outrage. I'm missing the cutoff by a few months but will gladly pay if the occasion arises.
As others have noted the Smokies are free but I am not joking when I say I would pay $800/year to access them. That works out to $15/week for 2-6 hours of happiness and relaxation. I'm not advocating a fee as most people have more limited funds, but I fail to see the outrage at $80. I donate more than that annually to Friends of the Smokies.
Giving away a lifetime of National Park visits (for a whole carload of people of any age as long as the driver is 62 or older) for the price of a cheeseburger is a poor use of government resources. It's worth every penny of $80.
Since I usually do car travel trips with my ferret, and most of these national parks won't allow pets inside the park, I head for the state parks instead.
Last time I drove up to the Visitor's station at Mesa Verde, they wouldn't allow me to take my little ferret into the park so no more national parks for me until they change their policies.
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