This quote, from a source unrelated to the appended article, is a fitting introduction to what follows:
"A civilized person might climb the highest mountain, swim the
deepest river, or cross the hottest desert for love, sweet love. He
might do anything, indeed, except be willing to pay for it." -Mark
Sagoff
It's been almost a decade since the USFS and BLM began prohibiting the
public from accessing, using or enjoying publicly-owned lands unless
payment of a fee was made. Those who advocated for this
Libertarian-inspired policy said that having the government charge for
access would create a market for fee-based recreation which would
inspire private land owners to open their lands to pay-to-play use. One
of the supposed benefits of pay-to-play would be to INCREASE the number
and range of opportunities for outdoor recreation.
(http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj1n2-6.html)
Things have not turn out as the ideologues said. Today the general
public is being priced from public lands while private landowners who'd
previously permitted access to their property are now restricting
access to all but paying customers. Who can blame them? If our
government won't allow taxpayers to use public lands without paying,
then why would private land owners extend such a courtesy??
Of course none of this represents a problem for the truly wealthy. For
them, pay-to-play has worked out marvelously. You might even say that
for the rich, pay-to-play has worked out exactly as intended.
Scott
---- begin quoted ----
http://www.telluridegateway.com/articles/2006/07/17/news/news01.txt
Published: Sunday, July 16, 2006
New Pay to Play plan on Wilson Peak
Landowner wants to charge $100 a hiker to bag the peak
By Matthew Beaudin
Those hoping to climb Wilson Peak had better be ready to put their money where their feet hope to follow.
Landowner Rusty Nichols, whose mining claims dot Wilson Peak and the surrounding area like patchwork, has recently launched a Web site that attempts to sell access to the peak for $100 per hiker, per use.
"He's got a right to do what he wants on his private land," said United States Forest Service Ranger Kathy Peckham. "He didn't need our permission."
Nichols owns property that covers the traditional - and easiest - route to the top of the 14,017 foot-peak and some 300 acres in the Wilson Peak area total, Peckham said.
The common route that hikers may now have to pay to hike travels up the Silver Pick Basin and meanders up old mining roads to the Rock of Ages saddle, where hikers are then just a few short scrambles from the summit.
Access to the iconic pyramid-shaped peak visible from State Highway 145 has been a point of contention for years, as access to the mountain has been limited and closed in past years for reasons ranging from liability to incidents of vandalism, which Nichols said via e-mail ranged from "Several cabins burned, vehicles and equipment damaged, theft of anything and everything not nailed down, threats etc." And that, he said, has served to stiffen his resolve.
The new pay to play plan is but the latest chapter in a rapidly growing volume of history between Nichols and the Forest Service. Attempts to swap public access for lands elsewhere have proven fruitless.
Since the early 1990s, four different land swaps have fizzled between the two sides, Peckham said. The pair have come to the same impasse more than once, as the USFS and Nichols dispute the potential mineral value of Nichols' holdings, impacting what the USFS and Nichols alike perceive to be a fair deal.
Nichols wrote in an e-mail on Sunday that "It is not acre for acre - it is value for value."
There are alternate routes to the top, though none offer the simplicity and ease of the traditional route.
The Web site, www.wilsonpeakaccess.com, states that hikers will be allowed to use Nichols' property legally and that "the owners do not wish to force climbers to take unnecessary risks to deviate around their properties, but do wish to limit their liability and offset costs of maintaining the facility and their access to roads in the basin."
The site says that staffing expenses, liability, insurance costs and annual road improvements leave the owners no option but to charge a fee for access to the peak.
Nichols said he did not care if hikers either paid to walk through his land or went around. He said he has to charge to keep tabs on who is in the area due to the past vandalism and to offset the costs of keeping the traditional route open. Nichols cited work he's done on the gradient of the mining roads in order to keep them accessible to emergency operations as one of his expenses.
"Neither the County nor the Forest Service has spent a dime on the roads above my lowest claims. The miners built all the trails to Wilson and the original road in the basin as well," he wrote in his e-mail.
The Web site asks hikers to acknowledge a waiver and then pay the fee online before a printed ticket is issued, which serves as a passport to the privately owned part of the mountain.
The site also states that 50 percent of the access fee, $50 per hiker, will be donated to the preserving Valley Floor.
"Trespassers will be discouraged and prosecuted," the site warns.
But not everyone is ready to pay to climb a mountain that used to be free.
"Telluride Mountain Club, and myself personally, are totally opposed to pay to play," said Tor Anderson, president of the TMC.
Anderson was among a group of hikers and Forest Service officials that attempted to find an alternate route that skirted Nichols' property last summer, and has worked on the access problem at Wilson Peak for the past two years. He said Nichols' new approach to the peak has moved in a different direction than he had hoped for, which was placing the trail in public ownership.
"Ultimately I just think it's unfair. I truly believe in the freedom of the hillsS I don't think that the public should be kept out of areas they've always had access to," Anderson said.
Access to the peak is still possible without trespassing, Peckham said. The northwest ridge route can navigate around Nichols' property, and can be accessed from the Wilson Mesa Trail. "You would need maps, there is no trail," she said. "But it is possible."
Another option, Peckham said, is the north face route, which also jumps from the Wilson Mesa Trail.
Access from the other side of the mountain to Rock of Ages will still force hikers to trespass to top out, Peckham added.
"It just feels like it's an ongoing problem," she said. "We really have not ignored this problem, and just like everyone else we have been frustrated in out attempts to solve it."
Doug Robotham, Colorado director of the Trust For Public Lands, said the issue is one Coloradoans will be forced to recognize.
"While unfortunate, it's certainly within a property owners right to determine terms of access to his or her property," he said.
Robotham added that private ownership of small mining claims has presented access problems across the state.
"It's a land ownership reality that Colorado faces," Robotham said. "That same legacy is all over the mountains, all over the San Juans."
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oes TMC allow free public access, even to non-members of its property, beleiving in the "freedom of the hills"?