Although inflation fell below 3% in June, with the price of appliances, eggs, furniture and used cars also dropping, tell that to the folks at the U.S. Forest Service.
The managers of the vast, 700,000-acre Angeles National Forest — including the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument — are proposing to raise the cost of camping at 11 popular sites by as much as 300%. The fee hikes, if approved by a resource advisory committee and the regional forester, would take effect sometime in 2025.
The Forest Service is proposing increased fees at 11 developed campgrounds: Oak Flat, Sycamore Flat, South Fork, Monte Cristo, Manker Flat, Lightning Point Group Campgrounds, Horse Flats, Crystal Lake, Coldbrook, Chilao and Buckhorn.
The proposal has received mixed reactions since announced on July 1.
“We are never in favor of raising fees. We feel it is an equity issue,” said Juana Torres, president of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter’s Forest Committee. The Sierra Club and its forest committee are formulating written responses. Comments on the fee hikes are accepted until Sept. 1.
Torres was particularly concerned about raising rates from $5 to $20 a day per campsite, or 300%, at Oak Flat, Sycamore Flat and South Fork — primitive campgrounds on the desert side of the forest, close to the Lancaster/Palmdale area.
Since Lancaster and Palmdale have significant populations of people of color, the campgrounds attract many Black and Latino families. Most who camp in the Angeles National Forest cannot afford a trip to Yosemite National Park, for example, where reservations are required as much as a year in advance, sites cost about $36 a day and are very difficult to secure.
“For some of these folks it is their only vacation — a camping trip. To raise fees when so much else is going up seems unfair,” Torres said on Monday, July 15. “And from $5 to $20 is not a reasonable increase. To raise the fees dramatically in this area doesn’t seem fair.”
The proposed fee hikes…
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