The National Forest Service management practices in Big Sur are extremely obnoxious. They allow a private contractor to control access to Pfeiffer Beach and the Sand Dollar beach parking/access, not accepting federal Interagency passes (which are supposed to handle exactly those types of fees). It's my federal land, and I pre-paid entry fees for the year, so WTF? How did this come about, did the contractor's owner pay someone off? Seriously. A congressman (or woman) with pull in the Dept. of Agriculture perhaps? Boxer? Feinkenstein? Someone knows... do tell.
Devil's Postpile National Monument does a similar same thing, rationalizing that their fee and refusal to honor federal Interagency passes is due to their offering a free shuttle... even when you arrive the first week of the year, before the shuttle is not operating and you have to drive your own vehicle in! It's totally inconsistent with other NPS properties like Zion which offers free shuttles (while also honoring Interagency passes).
Even Bodie State Historical Park took the cue and changed their previous $2 entry fee into a $7
per person fee so they could blow off their biggest fans who payed $120 for an annual pass (which is now not accepted). Want to get in a couple of hours early for photography? $50! Cha-ching! Get into a building? Sign up for a private photographer's tour... $195 or more... not a problem until you consider the fact that there's no other way to gain access - to gain access to your state's resources you need to be wealthy.
I certainly do love and appreciate open Forest Service land where I'm allowed to escape the din of established campgrounds, but the practice of allowing some of the best and most unique properties to "write their own rules" regarding honoring the agency's pass is obnoxious. Going even further to allow private profiteers to hold certain resources in our parks hostage is entirely unacceptable.
It's very reassuring that speeches at both the state and federal level lately have (finally) started mentioning rewarding merit, not seniority, among government employees. The context is mainly discussing teachers so far, but as agencies are forced to trim budgets, it's great that they'll finally start looking at the competence level of some of the "dead weight" they've been carrying for years. I'm considering organizing complaint drives to protest these policies which cheat customers/taxpayers out of the access they payed in advance for. Perhaps the complaints will facilitate the early retirement of bureaucrats who allowed these deplorable situations to come about. One can certainly hope so.
Jeff Sullivan
Blog: htttp://www.MyPhotoGuides.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/JeffSullPhoto