GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK - RECREATION FEE DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM

United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service
Grand Canyon National Park
P.O. Box 129
Grand Canyon, Arizona 86023-0129

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK
RECREATION FEE DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM

Grand Canyon National Park has been selected as one of 47 National Park System areas to participate in the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, authorized by Congress as part of the FY 1996 Appropriations Act for the Department of Interior. As a result, Grand Canyon National Park will soon receive desperately needed funds to improve maintenance, implement new visitor education programs, construct new facilities, and provide additional resource protection. The new demonstration program will go into effect at Grand Canyon National Park on Wednesday, January 15, and will include an increase in entrance fees, and the establishment of backcountry permit and camping fees. The fees to be charged are:

Entrance Fees	Current Fee	New Fee
Private Vehicle	$ 10	$ 20
Individual ( public transportation, bicycle, river user)	$ 4	$ 10
Annual Grand Canyon Pass - private vehicle or individual	$ 15	$ 40

Projects to be completed with the increased revenues include:

Mather Point Orientation/Transportation Center, the cornerstone of the park's General Management Plan.
Additional restroom facilities to increase the quality of service to visitors and add additional capacity.
Completion of the Arizona Trail that runs from Utah to Mexico which will expand multiple use recreational opportunities in Grand Canyon and Northern Arizona.
Interior construction of the new Curatorial Storage and Research Facility to properly house the park's extensive museum collection.
Develop new Day Hiker Education Program to mitigate the much publicized need for improved safety and preparedness education for nearly 1 million day hikers annually.

Backcountry Permit / Camping Fee	Current Fee	New Fee
Permit Fee (per permit)	None	$ 20
Per Person / Per Night Backcountry	None	$ 4

A party of three camping in the Grand Canyon backcountry for two nights would be charged $20 for a permit and $24 camping fee (3 hikers x 2 nights each).

Projects to be completed with the increased revenues include:

Improve customer service by increasing hours of coverage at the Backcountry Office, reducing permit processing time, installing backcountry orientation and safety exhibits and producing a backcountry education video for use on-site and off-site.
Implement new backcountry visitor and resource protection programs by increasing backcountry patrols, instituting an archeological protection program, assessing resource impacts and rehabilitating impacted trails and campsites.

It is estimated that fee revenue to be returned directly to Grand Canyon National Park through the Demonstration Program Entrance Fee and Backcountry Permit/Camping Fee projects is approximately $20 million.

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