Mount Rainier National Park

Established in 1899 by President McKinley, Mount Rainier National Park was the nation’s fifth. It is today surrounded by signs informing visitors, who’ll pay almost nothing to enter ($80/year for an annual pass), that they might have to wait 3 hours in a car line-up (engines and AC running for maximum climate preservation!) to get to the “wilderness” experience inside the gate. In the bad old days of 1908, people paid $5 per car. The BLS CPI calculator goes back only to 1913, but ChatGPT says that this corresponds to $180 today. What did those with $180 of today’s dollars get when they arrived? Some fun activities that have had to be banned in today’s crowded national parks:

The visitors of 1908 didn’t have to deal with the negative effects of Climate Change:

Despite our abuse of Mother Earth, she apparently still loves Her children because we were blessed with unusually clear weather on Day 1 of our visit:

Evening above Myrtle Falls (near the Paradise Inn):

Speaking of Paradise, check out the 5G mobile service available in this mile-high island within the park:

The rest of the park is pretty shabby, consistent with the almost-free entrance price (see What if our National Parks charged Navajo prices?). The lobby of the Inn is beautiful, but the rooms are small and crummy by present-day standards:

Don’t miss Box Canyon and Silver Falls, east of Paradise:

Putting our rental minivan to shame, a Siberian Husky’s 13-ton motorhome (on tour from 2021-2033):

Don’t miss the short Twin Firs Trail through old growth forest on your way out to the west.

Practical tip: make sure to bring hiking sticks, especially if visiting in June when th snow won’t have melted.

Summary: a great place, but it was created for a country of 76 million humans for whom long-distance travel was expensive and onerous. Nobody seems to have thought about what it means to build a park for over 400 million Americans (we’ll get there pretty soon if legal immigration continues at 1.3 million humans per year and very fast indeed if we have another Biden-Harris-style surge of undocumented migration) who have access to low-cost comfortable cross-country transportation, plus another 70+ million foreign visitors to the U.S. (current level). Considering the gold-plated nature of much that is run by the government, it is unclear why the national parks stumble along shabbily. Entrance fees are low, a massive subsidy is required every year from taxpayers in general, and facilities are antiquated and in obvious need of maintenance. Meanwhile, access is rationed according to who is willing to sit in a 3-hour traffic line to get in, who can tolerate physical discomfort in crummy hotels, who doesn’t mind using outhouses when private enterprise in the same terrain has running water and a septic system, etc.

Related, from the New York Times:

This year, staffing remains sharply reduced, and some parks have scrapped their reservation systems, already leading to gridlock at popular sites.

They own some of the most valuable real estate in the world, in other words, and can’t get a sufficient return on that capital to pay a few rangers. A family of rich foreigners on a three-week national park trip will still pay almost nothing per person per day.

They can also buy a $250 nonresident annual pass — available online or at park gates. The same pass costs $80 for U.S. residents.

Almost ninety percent of the true cost of the foreign family’s visit will be paid by federal personal income taxpayers, many of whom won’t have enough time or money to visit the parks. (Only 10 percent of the NPS budget comes from visitor fees and another 3-4 percent from concession contracts.)