Grand Teton Axes Controversial Plan to Require Portrait Photo Permits

[Vaughn]

Arches NP just announced that they are instituting a PERMIT ONLY system during their busy season -- Spring/Summer. Other NPs have already done that, like Rocky Mountain NP. No permit? No access. FYI, the permits are free and basically reservations for a specific date -- you still have to pay to get in, or have a pass...

Yosemite starts requiring daily permits to visit starting May 20th, 2022.

I have seen 'pros' doing portrait shoots in parks, sometimes quite obnoxously and pissing others off. Back in the 90s (1890s) such obnoxious photographers might end up in the town fountain. Modern ones in National Parks should take care when hogging spots near water features.

[xkaes]

I have seen 'pros' doing portrait shoots in parks, sometimes quite obnoxously and pissing others off. Back in the 90s (1890s) such obnoxious photographers might end up in the town fountain. Modern ones in National Parks should take care when hogging spots near water features.

If they are obnoxious, you can be too -- just eat your lunch in front of the waterfall.

[Vaughn]

If they are obnoxious, you can be too -- just eat your lunch in front of the waterfall.

As I was setting up for this image (5x7), two hikers came by and sat on the log down by the water for a short time. Beautiful spot. Eventually they left and came up the trail past me. The light had gotten even better, so who am I to complain? I took two images of the fall. One with the fall centered and this one. It was good to have had the extra time to see the scene.

[Tin Can]

The very reasons I 'capture' Memory Prints by standing still for long minutes looking at something I will never see again

I didn't carry any camera for long time when vagabonding

too much baggage

Started that age 7 when I finally got glasses

Mem to me

[Alan Klein]

Grand Teton was clearly going about this in the wrong direction.

There can be problem of having to many weddings in a small resort town. Stanley, Idaho only has four motels and it was hosting 5 or 6 weddings a weekend. Wedding parties were booking motels a year in advance. Most of these people have never been out of or wanted to leave the big city. They get to Stanley and look at the mountains and lakes, then ask what does a person do here. They are only taking up motels from people who would love to come here to enjoy nature. The city now limits the amount of weddings that can happen on city properties. I think the park service has to enforce existing laws on party size or come up with new ones to cope with the growing problem. These people put emergency service providers to there limits and have no experience being in the outdoors.

The government should stay out of it. It's not their business. Let the free market work. This is how towns grow into cities. With more people looking to stay in that town, some entrepreneur will build a bigger better motel, maybe a nicer hotel. Then a businessman will see a need for a better restaurant. A photographer will open a small shop and develop film and sell his own prints of the mountains. A cowboy out of work will start driving a cab. Leave it alone. What you want to do is protect the only motel in town from competition rather than letting the town grow to meet the need of more visitors.

[Alan Klein]

As I was setting up for this image (5x7), two hikes came by and sat on the log down by the water for a short time. Beautiful spot. Eventually they left and came up the trail past me. The light had gotten even better, so who am I to complain? I took two images of the fall. One with the fall centered and this one. It was good to have had the extra time to see the scene.

If they charge photographers, I think they should charge hikers $50 a day to hike. $10 for pets. That will keep a lot of them out of our scenes.

[Vaughn]

The government should stay out of it. It's not their business. Let the free market work. This is how towns grow into cities....

Oh great -- let the whole world look like New Jersey.

[Thad Gerheim]

The government should stay out of it. It's not their business. Let the free market work. This is how towns grow into cities. With more people looking to stay in that town, some entrepreneur will build a bigger better motel, maybe a nicer hotel. Then a businessman will see a need for a better restaurant. A photographer will open a small shop and develop film and sell his own prints of the mountains. A cowboy out of work will start driving a cab. Leave it alone. What you want to do is protect the only motel in town from competition rather than letting the town grow to meet the need of more visitors.

This is a town of 69 people that doesn't have any room to grow. The town is surrounded by the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. It's the government's job to protect the environment and I'd like to see people with an appreciation of nature have the chance to experience it instead of "Oh, I'm just in town for a wedding, there's nothing to do here!" Property values are so high it's the billionaires buying out the millionaires and they don't run little motels that only have a 4 to 5 month season. The cowboys left decades ago. It's mostly .com people here now. Maybe I am a little nostalgic, having moved here 41 years ago when cowboys and loggers could still afford living here.

[Oren Grad]

Two points:

1) No, there is absolutely not a general prohibition of external links here.

2) How best to manage scarce public resources that face competing demands is an important question, but also one that is impossible to entertain without quickly getting into contentious discussion of conflicting political philosophies. Accordingly, it's beyond our scope.