Backcountry Camping Permitting Public Meeting
Channel: Shenandoah NPS
Date: 2023-06-07

Recording of public meeting discussing backcountry camping permitting. Held on June 6, 2023.

Backcountry Permitting System Public Meeting Questions:

From Shenandoah National Park: We will be beginning shortly. We are allowing people to get on the call. Thank you.

1. Do hikers still have to pay entrance fee on top of backcountry fee?

2. What about for community organizations where we might not know a final number of attendees until very late?

3. Will there be a “annual/season pass” mechanism for frequent local backcountry backpackers?

4. Will a carrying capacity be introduced on each trail limiting the amount of BC camping users for each trail?

5. These fees would help pay for dispersed site maintenance, etc. How is that funded now?

6. Any pricing for students, education, military, etc?

7. I expect a big part of the Park’s backcountry problems (misuse - fires/trash/etc) is with people who have ignored backcountry rules — including permitting.  Your plan doesn’t address this?

8. Could you enable using recreation.gov without any fees?

9. Will a printed permit be required to be carried/displayed, or just having an electronic permit on a phone be acceptable?

10. Are there any projections on how much revenue this would raise per year? An alternative would be to raise the park entrance fee by a certain amount to raise the same amount of extra revenue.  How much would it have to be raised to do that?

11. Will fees apply to persons doing volunteer work in the park?  How to designate these?

12. The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club does the trails maintenance for SNP. Why is there fee needed in addition?

13. Will all other methods be removed for obtaining a permit once this is implemented? I.E. pull out the self registration stations? No longer allow registration at the VCs?

14. Sorry if I missed this info earlier - will there be any type of physical "tag" to carry similar to the current system?

15. The BC hang tag permits were notoriously inaccurate, people wouldn't fill out group number, # of nights, start date etc. Will the rec.gov system require every box to have something inputted?

16. Is this primarily about funding or protecting the backcountry? Why doesn’t SNP/Interior find more money elsewhere? Can you fine people who misuse rather than charge all of us good users?

17. Sounds like your proposal is a good idea.  Thank you for all your work keeping the backcountry in shape!

18. Thanks for the outreach!

19. Thank you! I am grateful we have not had fees to this point and happy to support the park!!

From Shenandoah National Park: Please submit public comments starting tomorrow at https://parkplanning.nps.gov/SHEN-Backcountry or by mail through July 6, 2023.