National Forest Adventure Pass...

With each passing week, one thing has become increasingly clear:
We are a passionate group of people.

When I first joined, people were happy to ride once/twice a week.
As STR has grown, so has our (collective) thirst for MORE rides! Daytime.. Nightime... Before work... After work..... Weekends.. Road trips... You name it!

For many, there is a "whole world" they have yet to explore!
To do so, you will need a National Forest Adventure Pass.
This Pass is required for anyone visiting the Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres and San Bernardino National Forests.

Prices:
Annual Pass: $30
Second Pass: $5
Daily Pass: $5
*My suggestion: Buy two (30+5) and split the cost with a friend!


Where to buy: Adventure 16, Big 5, Ranger Stations, REI, Sports Chalet, Select Visitor Centers...

They can even be purchased online>
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sanbernardino/ap/vendors.php

Adventure Pass Home> http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sanbernardino/ap/index.php

Cool Interactive Maps > http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sanbernardino/ap/maps/index.shtml

Like I said, there is a "whole world" out there.... :beer:

 

I buy 2 each year, keep them both in my car... invariably someone needs one when we are all at the meeting spot heading up the hill.

(not that you reeeaallly need them, just saves the headache of attempted enforcement)

 

Not to diminish your point of getting 2 passes and sharing with a friend,
AFAIK the pass is required if you park your car in the forest. If you ride in you won't need a pass, right?

 

you don't need a pass for either. But yes, if you just ride in the park you won't see a "ticket"

 

I don't believe in adventure passes. I've been ticketed more times then I care to count and they all end-up in the same place; the round files! I believe an adventure pass should be renamed to an "extortion pass". It's nothing but a ploy to double-tax all of us who already pay taxes for such causes. It should not be (attempted) enforced but rather, encouraged on voluntary system, asking for donations to help maintain protected lands. Then and only then, I would be much more willing to donate and help out. Until then, they can kiss my arss and keep wasting precious paper.

 

Are you trying to tell me the fine is NOT enforceable? :?:

 

I still have mine from that Chilao ride. :lol: got 2 others at chantry

 

talk about timing was heading out today to get mine now that maples is "supposed" to open.

do the "buddy system" each year (second for +5) and share with a friend. far cheaper than my annual state pass to ride el moro and county pass to peters, oaks, irvine, aliso etc.

 

Yeah there are a lot of people that hate the feeling of being double taxed. My bro in-law gets tickets for no pass, he finds a car with a day pass, writes the number down at the bottom of the pass and puts it on the ticket and mails it back to NFS. They dont assign pass numbers to cars so they dont know. I just split the cost of annual passes with a friend. I'm a easy push over. Mailing tickets back and just worrying about unpaid ones coming back to haunt me is just not worth it too me. Take my $35 a year, whatever.

 

i own one of those things and i hate it. i would allocate 50% of my taxes to the national forest service if i could. instead, i have to pay again... double tax crap.

 

Dino, I'm just telling you how I see it. Here's a helpful link that will shed more light on the issue. http://www.freeourforests.org/

Also, I C&P this so not my words but rather, my sentiments...

Why Fees Are Wrong:


1. Our public lands are our heritage and our birthright. We own these lands. They are not a recreational commodity.
2. We already support the public lands agencies and our public lands through our federal taxes. Furthermore, hunters, fishermen and others pay licensing fees on top of access fees and taxes. This new fee amounts to nothing more than double - or even triple - taxation.
3. Fee Demo sets a precedent of classicism where only those who can afford to recreate will be able to do so. Those who can't afford it will be barred from their own public lands.
4. The act of paying fundamentally alters the way one relates to the outdoors. People won't feel the reponsibility of being on their own land. Rather, they will feel like they are visiting Disneyland where someone else is being paid to clean up after them.
5. Fee Demo has nothing to do with the stewardship of public lands. It is, in fact, the beginning of an attempt by corporate America to privatize and commercialize our public lands.
6. Businesses that sell passes are selling-off our freedoms. These vendors make a profit from the loss of one of our basic rights as American citizens: our right to access our public lands.
7. The Forest Service is basing the success of its fee projects on compliance. The threatened $100.00 fine is nothing less than extortion!
8. The Forest Service cannot justify sticking the public with a fee or a fine while it continues to lose millions of dollars a year due to its own mismanagement.
9. Making the public pay a fee to use its own public lands, while at the same time providing federal subsidies for timber, cattle, and mining interests on public lands, is not only illogical, but immoral.
10. Due to its cumbersome nature, Fee Demo is not generating anywhere near the needed funds for the Forest Service, nor does it apply much of the funds that are raised to forest maintenance. In fact, many of the fee receipts do little more than pay for fee collection and enforcement.
11. Our priceless, God-given, wild country is being held hostage. Forest Service officials are threatening to close-off large portions of public lands if the fee program fails.
12. The American people should not have to pay again for wilderness areas where there are no man-made improvements, where they don't want any improvements, and where there shouldn't be any improvements.
13. People need a place to go - relatively free and un-fettered from society's pressures. Our public lands are the last of these places, and Fee Demo destroys this ideal.
14. Requiring a fee to use wilderness while cities are free is the same as saying that we are not a part of the natural world - we don't belong out there."

 

Being that I live in the SB Forest, I have a little different take on the Adventure Pass. By default, I buy a pass every year and have never had an issue with it. After numerous conversations with the rangers in here, the majority of the money collected from the passes goes to education and "unfunded" rehab projects not already covered in the operating budget of that region. What exactly those programs and educational opportunities are - no one really knows. It’s basically discretionary.

The vast majority of the educational programs offered by the Forest Service here in the SB Mountains are planned, executed and followed up on by volunteers. None of the rangers here have been able to give a clear answer about where that money goes.

BTW - a "ticket" given by the Forest Service is just a notice on non-compliance - not and actual citation.

 

greg - thanks.

notice of non- compliance???

Forest service (aka mom) - you better do what I say or else.

Me (aka d!ckhead) - or else, what

j/k i get one every year but begining to sound like the forest service are just english bobbys. running sounds saying stop but with no gun #-o

 

BTW - a "ticket" given by the Forest Service is just a notice on non-compliance - not and actual citation.

That's not always true. I had to go to a Federal Court in Bakersfield. I was written up by the Forest Service near Mt Pinos.

 

for parking without an adventure pass?

 

Was the ticket for the adventure pass or something else?

I've gotten plenty of adventure pass tickets and ignored them all without any issues.

~R

 

I have seen a lot of improvements to the picnic area at Chantry Flat (Angeles N.F.) since the Adventure Pass program was instituted. I don't know if those improvements were directly funded by the Adventure Pass, but I'd like to think they were.

The money from the Adventure Pass is supposed to stay in the local area where the Pass was purchased.

I can't stand worrying about tickets, so I'll keep buying the Pass.

 

$3 a month is too much?

For years I had an administrative pass, it allowed you to do many things the commercial one did not not to mention earning respect from the rangers. Last year I opted not to get another, mostly due to ideas that never came to fruition and the resultant bruised ego's. Hope this year the festering old wound can finally mend, but I am not the one who needs to get over it.

Anywho I would much rather cough up less than a tank of gas for the forestry dept. it costs money to provide trail heads, maps, and qualified trail etiquette and construction personnel to train volunteers. This makes the forest safer, more enjoyable, and not mention accessible for all user groups and rescue. when I weigh that with the thousands forcibly "invested" with the courts (who claim to be non-profit) think three bucks a month for unlimited access a bargain.

Thank for the reminder Mr. Brown, and whatever you do don't try and plan trail work.:lol:

 

How long ago was that? According to the rangers up here, it has to be turned over to federal law enforcement with a butt-load of supporting data that certified/sworn personel has to gather and submit. With current budget constraints, they don't even bother with 'em up here unless you accumulate 5-7 of the warnings.

As a wierd side story - the home of a little girl that attends the same preschool as my son technically falls within the jurisdiction of these fee areas. They have received well over 100 of these citations. Their home doesn't have a driveway that they can park in and have to park on the street. The Forest Service, for some reason, can't figure that out and keep writing these things. They go to the local ranger substation and have these things dismissed on a monthly basis. Last time, they took 13 of them.

Not true. The majority of these services are a part of the regular operating budgets for the district. As for making the forests safer - again not true. The Forest Service is already charged with maintaining a safe environment to all visitors and staff.

 

90-100% of fee revenues are retained at the local level.

As per legislation, they are permitted to spend fee revenue on the following areas: backlogged repair and maintenance projects (including projects related to health and safety), interpretation, signage, habitat or facility enhancement, resource preservation, annual operation (including fee collection) maintenance, and law enforcement relating to the public use of lands.

Around 20% of fee revenue goes back to fund fee collection. That leaves 80% (or $28 million in 2001) going towards the areas mentioned above.

$30 is around 0.1% of the per capita income in southern California. If you split two with a friend it's even less.

Just some food for thought.

Source: "Information on Forest Service Management of Revenue from the Fee Demonstration Program", April 2003, United States General Accounting Office.