Since I live in Tucson, I was one of those affected by the entrance fee they put up one day to park anywhere along the 2 hour drive up to the top of Mt. Lemmon in the Coronado National Forest. And you should have heard me rant when they put the little kiosk up, manned it with a ranger, and hammered in little nasty signs at every pulloff. I had heard this was being done at a lot of locations, nation wide, but according to some above, they've never seen a fee station. So maybe Coronado in Tucson was the only one. I know in the Gila National Forest in NM, there were never fees, but a ranger told me once 10 years ago they were considering adding them - which he thought was wrong.
Having lived in the West for 22 years in NM and AZ, I can tell you the big attraction was FREE, Undeveloped, Wide Open Spaces. The typical progression is to A) build a road (pave it if it's dirt), B) "improve" it with a signboard and toilet, then C) start charging for the maintenance and manning of A and B. Oh, and add D) post on that signboard all the new rules of use, and newly outlawed activities (usually about 25 bullet points). NO THANKS! I moved out west to be free, to pull off the blacktop onto a dirt 4WD path, drive a couple miles in, leave my vehicle and walk or ride my mules whereever the hell I please. I don't need walking paths, toilets, guardrails, guards, or rangers walking up telling me this place is unsafe to camp because the trees are weakened by invasive beatles or fire damage (It's happened multiple times in "improved" areas).
“We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all, but we cannot have freedom without wilderness, we cannot have freedom without leagues of open space beyond the cities, where boys and girls, men and women, can live at least part of their lives under no control but their own desires and abilities, free from any and all direct administration by their fellow men. [emphasis mine]”
- Edward Abbey
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