Crater Lake National Park set to raise fees

Starting on Friday, Crater Lake National Park will increase entrance fees for visitors in order to fund important maintenance and improvement projects within the park, officials said Wednesday.

The entrance fees and schedule are as follows:

Pass Type

Effective

May 15, 2015

Effective

May 1, 2017

Effective Date To Be

Determined

Park Annual Pass

(Also valid at Lava Beds

National Monument)

$30

$40

$40

Per Vehicle (1-7 days)

$15

$20

$25

Per Person (1-7 days)

$10

$12

$12

Motorcycle (1-7 days)

$10

$15

$20

The current fees are:

Park Annual Pass (Crater Lake and Lava Beds) $20

Per Vehicle (1-7 days) $10

Per Person (1-7 days) $5

Motorcycle (1-7 days) $5

The cost of the annual pass that is good for all national parks ($80) remains the same.

“This increase in fees will allow us to continue to protect, preserve and share the special places here at Crater Lake National Park with current visitors and future generations,” said Crater Lake Superintendent Craig Ackerman.

“After carefully considering the impact of a fee increase on visitors and community members, we came to the conclusion that this is the right course of action to improve facilities and services important to visitors,” said.

Entrance fees have supported a wide range of projects that improve the park and visitor experiences, including rehabilitating and constructing trails, developing and installing wayside exhibits and trailhead signs throughout the park, producing a new park film, printing park brochures and construction vault toilets.

Additional revenue from this fee increase will be used to expand and upgrade the Cleetwood Trail parking area, design and construct new trails, repair and maintain existing trails, resurface parking areas, develop a publicly accessible digital library of park cultural history documents, along with many other worthwhile projects that directly benefit park visitors.

In the fall of last year, the National Park Service conducted a nationwide review of entrance fees. To solicit public input, Crater Lake launched a civic engagement campaign in November.

During the public comment period, the park received 800 formal comments. While the majority of comments supported an increase, many people felt that the original proposal of $25 was too much of an increase to make all at once.

In response to those comments, the park said it modified the proposal to phase implementation of entrance fee increases to $15 beginning May 15, followed by a second increase to $20 on May 1, 2017. The final increase to the approved tier of $25 will occur at an undetermined date, but no sooner than 2018, officials said.

Beginning next winter, the park will collect a $10 per vehicle fee for visitors coming to enjoy the winter scenery and recreational opportunities. The park has always been authorized to charge fees in the winter, but has not done so in the past.

Keeping the park open in the winter is very expensive, officials said, and it is hoped that the winter fee might help repair and maintain facilities that are subject to extreme wear and tear when kept open during the severe conditions encountered at the park in winter.

Entrance stations will not be open, but visitors will be asked to stop at the visitor center to voluntarily submit the winter fee.