For those of you who are worried about the 'loss' of the RAT fees used to keep a bit of your recreation resources well fed and groomed..  Well, that care comes right out of the hide of caring for other places on the Forest (or other Interior lands) which are just as important as the RAT target parcel.

Case in point: The Mount Evans highway - a road maintained by the State of Colorado, has a RAT toll booth at the bottom and the FS collects a LOT of money from folks using the road even tho technically they cannot charge for the use of the roadway itself. This money has been mostly plowed back into creating a large staff at Mount Evans and building some amenities which are prominently posted 'paid for with your user fees' or similar wording. If you were to look at the area prior to the 'in the dark of night' establishment of the infamous Fee Demo and the even more nefarious 'rider' which created the RAT, you'd see a portion of the Arapaho NF which was open to all comers. At one point the FS administered a special use permit for a lodge at the summit. Now the whole thing is an illegal toll road with the RAT being justified as making it possible to provide a 'better experience' for the visitor via a new trail, interpretive center, and an outsized force of fee enforcement folks in the guise of increased staff keeping the mountain from being overrun.

Of course what they don't tell you is that keeping the mountain from being overrun might entail a politically uncomfortable option like just limiting the sheer number of visitors allowed up the mountain on any one day (think river permits here). Nope, we can't cut off that revenue source by limiting numbers!

And, after the official exercise of choosing what developed and undeveloped (the mythical "dispersed site") recreation sites to keep open with dwindling appropriated funds (think giant sucking noise from fire suppression folks defending private homes), only a pittance of the RAT funding (if any at all) is available for resource management outside the RAT site itself. In no way does the amount of $$ delivered to a unit by the RAT compensate for appropriated funding that has been chopped every year for nearly two decades. So we're at the crossroads where folks who aren't into paying a premium to visit some trophy site on a Forest are left without access to some primitive undeveloped site because all the money is being spent on either the 'income producing site' or, like on the Roosevelt NF where appropriated $$ to the tune of 1+ million dollars were used to reconstruct and enlarge a developed campground which was promptly turned over to a concessionaire to manage (and make a guaranteed profit from).

The RAT is a scam designed to feather the pockets of a few (including the empire building programs of a few Federal units which have 'high amenity value' lands set up with toll booth) at the expense of the vast majority of Forest and Public Lands visitors who are seeing their cherished 'off the track but beaten to hell' places closed or neglected due to being 'non-income producing.' For some units, the RAT is now an addiction. Pray that we can drown the RAT and fight like hell for the return of appropriated funds to take adequate care of the people's heritage. (Like stopping the hoards of OHVs spreading like a biblical plague across the landscape - Remember Chief Bosworth?)

Your mileage may vary. I started my journey in the 1950's when only NPS units could charge strictly limited entrance fees and only well developed campgrounds (like with water and trash pickup) could charge a nominal fee. My parents provided me with exposure to the public estate at very low cost - something that is increasingly out of reach for lower income families like ours. We can either let a few 'profit' from the income they rake off the public resources or we can profit as a nation by encouraging citizens and foreign visitors alike to access these same places without the accountants wringing their hands over the expense. It's our heritage, not that of the libertarian fringe - private enterprise vultures, that has been cared for over the decades by ALL of the people of the US, not just those with a little more room under their card's credit limit.

Kill the RAT!! 

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