Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

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Bill G
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by Bill G »

Am I missing something here? Who is paying $100,000 to climb Culebra?

That makes Everest seem cheap.
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martinleroux
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by martinleroux »

Wentzl wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 8:41 pm For anyone not sure about Booz Allen Hamilton, this is an interesting bit:
https://www.outdoorproject.com/articles ... blic-lands
Sorry for the thread drift, but whoever wrote that article was badly misinformed on a key point. They claim that in addition to receiving a per-transaction fee, Booz also received $182 million up-front to develop Recreation.gov. That's incorrect. Booz funded the development costs out of their own pocket, and in return they struck a deal to collect a per-transaction fee to recover those costs (and cover ongoing maintenance and administration). The quoted figure of $182 million is their projected revenue over the 10-year term of the contract, not an upfront payment.

You may not like that arrangement, but for cash-strapped agencies like the Forest Service and BLM it was clearly attractive. It's hard to see how they could have come up with enough funds out of their own budgets to develop and administer a reservation system serving tens of millions of users, thousands of facilities and a hundred thousand individual campsites. They don't even have enough funds for basic trail maintenance.

It's like toll roads. Most people don't like them, but there isn't the political will to allocate enough tax dollars for road construction. So we turn to the private sector to build roads, and we end up paying tolls.
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by Chicago Transplant »

JROSKA wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 10:51 pm
hellmanm wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 3:59 pm many climbers will be more inclined to chase small weather windows on dangerous elk peaks next summer. What once was a wise turnaround on the bells turns into a "well s**t, we can't try again until next year...
On another note why are so many 14er climbers on a strict time clock these days? If a scheduled time doesn’t work out (for weather, or whatever), what in the world is so wrong with just coming back again in a year? Or even more than a year. “I paid for this reservation, damn it, and I have no idea when I’ll be able to get out here again, I’m getting this peak, I don’t care if safety is compromised”. I guess I just don’t get that mentality. Never will.
I see this too, people have "X" peak scheduled for that day and they will stick with it even if the weather is far better on "Y" peak instead. Even if both peaks are still on the proverbial list, people won't change their plans. It seems worse the harder the peak is, like there is some mental block that this is their only chance to get that harder peak but they can do the walk up one any time.

What I don't like about the permitting system is the having to commit to things so far in the future. I make most of my plans a few days before when I get a better idea of the weather. I get nervous committing to dates too far out and then hoping the weather holds up. We got lucky all summer, Vestal trip, Jagged trip, 3x to the Maroon Lake area and all of them the weather was good enough to get up all of our objectives. It could have just as easily been 5 shutouts instead!
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SkaredShtles
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by SkaredShtles »

Bill G wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:58 am Am I missing something here? Who is paying $100,000 to climb Culebra?

That makes Everest seem cheap.
It seems that your sarcasmometer may be broken.
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by climbingcue »

Chicago Transplant wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:07 pm What I don't like about the permitting system is the having to commit to things so far in the future. I make most of my plans a few days before when I get a better idea of the weather. I get nervous committing to dates too far out and then hoping the weather holds up. We got lucky all summer, Vestal trip, Jagged trip, 3x to the Maroon Lake area and all of them the weather was good enough to get up all of our objectives. It could have just as easily been 5 shutouts instead!
Totally agree, we cancelled our Peak 15 trip July 4th weekend then again the 1st week of August. Finally had good enough weather to make it happen Labor Day Weekend. If we had to mess with a reservation system we would not have been able to climb it this year. Also the reason why I have not been able to do Rainier yet, the weather is always an issue.
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Conor
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by Conor »

climbingcue wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:15 pm
Chicago Transplant wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:07 pm What I don't like about the permitting system is the having to commit to things so far in the future. I make most of my plans a few days before when I get a better idea of the weather. I get nervous committing to dates too far out and then hoping the weather holds up. We got lucky all summer, Vestal trip, Jagged trip, 3x to the Maroon Lake area and all of them the weather was good enough to get up all of our objectives. It could have just as easily been 5 shutouts instead!
Totally agree, we cancelled our Peak 15 trip July 4th weekend then again the 1st week of August. Finally had good enough weather to make it happen Labor Day Weekend. If we had to mess with a reservation system we would not have been able to climb it this year. Also the reason why I have not been able to do Rainier yet, the weather is always an issue.
Are Rainier permits really that hard to get? While I climbed a non-standard route (kautz), our trip was done on a whim and we just showed up. there was plenty of space even if we wanted to do the DC. May not have been at Muir camp, but maybe that camp below the cleaver...

I do have an issue with the money. It all adds up. I would also be in favor to moving to a system that pretty much the entire world operates on, and that is charging more money for foreigners to visit our public lands.
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by k_fergie »

Dare I say it?

....Operation Dark Bells
I thought, I taught, I wrought
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by jfm3 »

k_fergie wrote: Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:29 pm Dare I say it?

....Operation Dark Bells
This is actually a viable option. I have been to Maroon Lake many times in the last 3 years, each time using a vehicle reservation. I always buy multiple reservations when they go on sale in April. Some years I use them all, some years I don't. I cancel the unused reservations so they go back into the pool of available slots. When making the reservation, I have never had to provide the license plate number of my car. If you drive up the road early enough, the USFS road entrance station is not staffed (nor is the road gated or otherwise closed). Once someone is in the hut, all vehicles must show that they have a reservation. And I have never been asked by a Ranger at Maroon Lake to indicate that I have a parking reservation. I leave a note on my dashboard with my name, objective for the day and the reservation number from the email. All these factors taken together indicate to me that one could forego a reservation, drive to Maroon Lake before the USFS entrance station is staffed, and not suffer any consequence for not making a reservation. Does it violate both the letter and spirit of the law? Yes. But, as the saying goes (sort of), "the trail (road?) may be closed, but the mountain is not."

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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by Eli Boardman »

It's only 10 miles from downtown Aspen to Maroon Lake. That's still day-trippable. Next thing we'll hear is that you can't climb Pikes because they closed the summit road.

Jk. Or am I?
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by marksilas »

Reservation page says: "Overnight visitors will need to print and display their reservation on the dashboard of their vehicle. Daily and hourly visitors do not need to print their reservation." Don't even have to put anything on dashboard. Just sayin...
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by peter303 »

NYTimes had an article criticizing recreation.gov:

National Park Booking App Leaves Users Feeling Lost in the Woods
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/29/trav ... n-gov.html

They were mainly complaining that everything seemed to be already reserved.


My main complaint with recreation.gov is there is a four day blackout window before date when you cannot reserve nor cancel. This leads to *many* unused reservations. For example at Peak One Campground, Frisco a Saturday this September, I saw six never-used campsites in a 28 site loop. The Colorado State system lets you reserve or cancel *same day*.
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Re: Permits Required for Maroon-Snowmass Camping in 2023

Post by Istoodupthere »

I know I’m the rare case, but I’ve driven from Michigan to climb 38 of the 39 14ers I’ve done. My goal is to have the record for most miles driven during my completion of the 58 :lol: My #1 option on the drive out has changed around half the time due to finding better weather at a different peak when I get close to CO. Now that I’m running out of 14ers, I’ve been doing more centennials when the weather changes. It’s the reason I haven’t done Culebra/Red. I’m not booking way in advance, not knowing what the weather will be like. This change at Maroon will certainly makes this tougher on me. At the same time, I would probably be one of those people that if I did get a permit for Maroon, would probably be willing to push things more than normal if questionable weather was forecasted.
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