Yellowstone now charging backcountry fee's

[Joey]

Yellowstone National Park is now charging fee's for backpacking. I've been holding my breath about this all winter, but its really not bad. Only $3 per person per night, and only $25 for an annual pass. Much better than that park to the south.

http://www.nps.gov/yell/parknews/15007.htm

 

[Bob]

If it helps pay to keep the backcountry experience good and stays at Yellowstone I'm ok with it......

 

[Joey]

If it helps pay to keep the backcountry experience good and stays at Yellowstone I'm ok with it......

Yep, me to. My biggest fear was that it would be like Grand Teton National Park, which offers no annual pass, and chargers $25 per trip.

 

[Bob]

Got to pay for all those cell phone rescues

 

[John Goering]

There are a lot of other places that are still free and just as nice-but admittedly don't have the attraction of being potentially vaporized.

 

[John Goering]

Guess I'm not as enamored with Yellowstone as a lot of people. Been around it all my life and through it 100's of times, including a few backcountry jaunts in the 60's and 70's. Take away the geothermal aspect, the biggest thing it has going is a lot of square miles of wilderness-only a small fraction of which I put into the spectacular category. Generally, a pretty homogenized place. Given the option, I will chose locations like the Beartooth's or Wind's every time.

 

[Joey]

@John Goering , I know there are lots of other places that are free. I posted this because there are several members on this forum who like to explore Yellowstone National Park specifically every year. We knew this was coming, and it finally happened. This post was to just let those of us who love Yellowstone know there is a change.

No, Yellowstone isn't scenic, not as scenic as the Beartooth's. But its has so much more to offer. The Beartooth's are a lot like that girl who puts on a lot of makeup, and every guy looks at her. She is pretty. But after a few dates with her, you get bored. There is only so much to her.

Yellowstone is like that girl your friends with for years, and you enjoy her company. After a while, you find yourself liking her more and more. She has a wonderful personality, she has soul. You just love being with her. You love the feeling you get when your around her. You end up marrying that girl. That's Yellowstone.

I often tell people, if you only have 1 or 2 weeks to backpack, you probably shouldn't go to Yellowstone. Its a wild wilderness, not a high alpine beauty. But if you want real adventure, its a pretty neat and enchanting place. You get stories from Yellowstone.

I have the entire spring/summer/fall to backpack anywhere I want. And every year I find myself spending a ton of time in the Greater Yellowstone area. I love all of it. But I pass up on backpacking in the Beartooth's all the time, just so I can go back to that boring, homogenized wilderness in Yellowstone. And yes, I've backpacked the Beartooth's. It's wonderful country. I'm planning to do a neat 5 day trip there this summer. But I'm also planning to spend another 3 months in Yellowstone's backcountry. So there must be something there that I see in it.

Bottom line is, we all find beauty in different things. There is nothing wrong with that.

 

[Bob]

They are two completely different types of wilderness.. Winds and Beartooths are spectacular scenery in their own right. Yellowstone is spectacular in the wildlife diversity, thermals, remoteness and sheer size of "wilderness" land. ( yes take the thermals away and Yellowstone would be less, just as if you flatten out the Beartooths or WInds) but you cannot say that because it is not the case. Actually, the Beartooth's and the Wind's are probably more uniform and similar through out their respective areas than the Yellowstone system is. High mountains are actually pretty sterile. Beauty is there in both and I do not detract from either. Depending on what I want I choose, as all can do.

I think is great that someone can love an area enough to truly get into that area and learn and truly 'know' the area. I have to visit an area and may or may not get back to that area as I want to experience the variety.

John, I get a chuckle about being vaporized...... However, everyone from pretty much mid Montana to mid Utah will be vaporized or end up as "Pompei" type statues when the Yellowstone caldera erupts again. That is basically a Northern Hemisphere life ending event. Think of it as you have the front row seat.

 

[John Goering]

Yes, I would be first to agree the high alpine and Yellowstone are two very different places. I also agree that Yellowstone is a very interesting place and contains orders of magnitude more wildlife just because those high alpine areas are more sterile. For me, I just don't get into looking at countless miles of trees, occasional hot springs/mud pits/geysers or not. Just personal. I do enjoy Joey's, scatman's, Bob's and the rest of the YP posts here.

I have never tired of the Tooth's. My first trip in there was the beaten path in 1964-complete with all the hurried trail blasting before the 1964 Wilderness Act came about and before East Rosebud Creek was loved to death. Even after 50 plus years, maybe missing a year or two but pretty much a week every summer, there are still some places left to visit.

As for Yellowstone's future and its impact when it does decide to do its thing again, I think my little corner of space might actually escape the worst of it. In all the holes I've dug on our place, I have yet to find a Yellowstone ash layer but it is certainly going to depend on which direction the wind is blowing-most likely over a period of weeks if not longer. One outfall from a geology/soils career is I can't help but log soil pits-habit I guess, septic, fence post holes, or any other type of excavation.

I don't think Yellowstone will end life in the northern hemisphere but it will end climate warming for maybe an extended period and there will likely be a big swath east of the park buried with a LOT of ash. I certainly would not want to be in Cody when that happens. Perhaps of equal destructive potential is what happens to 5 cubic miles of pretty much instantly displaced water. Aside from being a disaster orders of magnitude more than all others to date combined, it would be very interesting to watch from a geologic perspective-




from a distance.