Veterans new benefit!

[Gone Forever]

As of veterans day this year, ALL veterans are eligible for a free lifetime pass to national parks, wildlife refuges, BLM, BR, FS and Army corps recreation sites.
Not sure if this covers Pine view and the Berry, but worth having anyway.  It's free if you get it at the BLM offices in WVC or SLC, you have to pay a $10 service fee if you buy on line.


https://store.usgs.gov/MilitaryPass

I hope this is useful to some of our members and thank you for your service.
I'm going to get me one, for sure.

[RockyRaab2]

I'd bet lunch that it won't be good at P'View or the Berry. That concessionaire is greed personified.

[dubob]

I'd bet lunch that it won't be good at P'View or the Berry. That concessionaire is greed personified.

Thanks Gone.  And like Rocky said, concessionaires do NOT have to honor ANY of the Federal passes.  Congress gave the concessionaires that right when the Feds determined it would be cheaper to contract out management of Federal venues to private companies.  The contract gives the Feds a percentage of the fees collected with absolutely no overhead costs.  No Federal pass will work at ANY concessionaire run venue including Strawberry & Pineview.  I got my free lifetime disabled pass from both Utah and the Feds shortly after I received my disability rating from the VA in 1981.  The Utah lifetime pass is long gone but we that have it were grandfathered to continue using it as long as we have it in hand.  The State pass is still free for disabled Vets but requires an annual renewal.  The name of the Federal pass has changed but it is still free to disabled vets.  Even with restricted use at vender managed venues it’s a good deal.

[Gone Forever]

The change that was made, DuBob is that you no longer have to be disabled to get a free lifetime pass for federal owned(and I guess only federally operated) recreation areas.
To bad about the concessionaires and I suspect there will be more and more of those but being able to use over 4,000 places for free across the USA is a very nice thank you for vets.
I have no treatable or claimable disabilities from my service so far, and this is new for me.

[Redrebel]

I'd bet lunch that it won't be good at P'View or the Berry. That concessionaire is greed personified.

Thanks Gone.  And like Rocky said, concessionaires do NOT have to honor ANY of the Federal passes.  Congress gave the concessionaires that right when the Feds determined it would be cheaper to contract out management of Federal venues to private companies.  The contract gives the Feds a percentage of the fees collected with absolutely no overhead costs.  No Federal pass will work at ANY concessionaire run venue including Strawberry & Pineview.  I got my free lifetime disabled pass from both Utah and the Feds shortly after I received my disability rating from the VA in 1981.  The Utah lifetime pass is long gone but we that have it were grandfathered to continue using it as long as we have it in hand.  The State pass is still free for disabled Vets but requires an annual renewal.  The name of the Federal pass has changed but it is still free to disabled vets.  Even with restricted use at vender managed venues it’s a good deal.

I always get a funny look when I pull up to a state body of water and show them my state parks fun tag and some of them have no idea what it is. It’s amazing to me that I can use it at Willard and deer Creek and starvation but you go to Pineview or strawberry and they say because of such a high demand they still have to charge. I guess Willard and deer Creek have a different demand. Even with all the whining and complaining I’m still grateful that both state and federal governments are doing their best to try and honor those that are disabled, and those that have served.

[dubob]

The change that was made, DuBob is that you no longer have to be disabled to get a free lifetime pass for federal owned(and I guess only federally operated) recreation areas.
To bad about the concessionaires and I suspect there will be more and more of those but being able to use over 4,000 places for free across the USA is a very nice thank you for vets.
I have no treatable or claimable disabilities from my service so far, and this is new for me.

Sorry Gone, I didn't mean to imply I'm not 100% FOR giving ALL Veterans a free pass.  I love the new policy.  I did want to point out that even with the new, free pass, it won't get you into Strawberry and/or Pineview.  

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I always get a funny look when I pull up to a state body of water and show them my state parks fun tag and some of them have no idea what it is. It’s amazing to me that I can use it at Willard and deer Creek and starvation but you go to Pineview or strawberry and they say because of such a high demand they still have to charge. I guess Willard and deer Creek have a different demand. Even with all the whining and complaining I’m still grateful that both state and federal governments are doing their best to try and honor those that are disabled, and those that have served.

Your post is a little fuzzy to me. The STATE FUN TAG doesn't now and never did work at Strawberry or Pineview as both are Federal venues. And the Federal passes don't work there either. But the reason isn't because of high demand. The reason is because of what I stated earlier - concessionaires were allowed by Federal agencies to disallow free entry by ANY Federal pass holders.

[Redrebel]

The change that was made, DuBob is that you no longer have to be disabled to get a free lifetime pass for federal owned(and I guess only federally operated) recreation areas.
To bad about the concessionaires and I suspect there will be more and more of those but being able to use over 4,000 places for free across the USA is a very nice thank you for vets.
I have no treatable or claimable disabilities from my service so far, and this is new for me.

Sorry Gone, I didn't mean to imply I'm not 100% FOR giving ALL Veterans a free pass.  I love the new policy.  I did want to point out that even with the new, free pass, it won't get you into Strawberry and/or Pineview.  

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I always get a funny look when I pull up to a state body of water and show them my state parks fun tag and some of them have no idea what it is. It’s amazing to me that I can use it at Willard and deer Creek and starvation but you go to Pineview or strawberry and they say because of such a high demand they still have to charge. I guess Willard and deer Creek have a different demand. Even with all the whining and complaining I’m still grateful that both state and federal governments are doing their best to try and honor those that are disabled, and those that have served.

Your post is a little fuzzy to me.  The STATE FUN TAG doesn't now and never did work at Strawberry or Pineview as both are Federal venues.  And the Federal passes don't work there either.  But the reason isn't because of high demand.  The reason is because of what I stated earlier - concessionaires were allowed by Federal agencies to disallow free entry by ANY Federal pass holders.

Sorry Bob, I wasn’t very clear. To share a little bit of a conversation that I had with the forest service worker at Pineview. He stated that they didn’t want to honor discounted passes to vets and seniors even in the off season because of the high demand. I also know that it is an option like you stated for the concessionaire to make the choice. Many times at strawberry I’ve been charged and many times I’ve had my launch fees or camping fees waived, or discounted when showing the federal pass. I was more mentioning that why is it at the state can waive fees, but the federal agencies can’t regardless of concessionaire. I get that it’s a law, however, laws are meant to be challenged and broken.

[Therapist]

So when are we going to get organized and petition our congressional delegates to end the BS at Pineview and Strawberry !! DI have been touting this for many years here but nobody seems to be willing to do anything. I have written everyone in the delegation, but we need to put petitions in all the sporting goods stores, get signatures from sportsmen around the state, have everyone write our congressional delegation and get these waters under state control !! I am not a good organizer nor do I have the expertise in composing petitions, but I know there are some out there that are!! Let's get this done !!!

[dubob]

Sorry Bob, I wasn’t very clear. To share a little bit of a conversation that I had with the forest service worker at Pineview. He stated that they didn’t want to honor discounted passes to vets and seniors even in the off season because of the high demand. I also know that it is an option like you stated for the concessionaire to make the choice. Many times at strawberry I’ve been charged and many times I’ve had my launch fees or camping fees waived, or discounted when showing the federal pass. I was more mentioning that why is it at the state can waive fees, but the federal agencies can’t regardless of concessionaire. I get that it’s a law, however, laws are meant to be challenged and broken.

Basically, there 8 different America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Passes available to the general public.  The passes are valid at more than 2,000 Federal recreation sites where Entrance or Standard Amenity Fee(s) (Day use fees) are charged by the following agencies: Bureau of Land Management (BLM - http://www.blm.gov), Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation - http://www.usbr.gov), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS - http://www.fws.gov), USDA Forest Service (USDA FS - http://www.fs.usda.gov), National Park Service (NPS - http://www.nps.gov), US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE - http://www.usace.army.mil).  Not all Federal recreation sites charge entrance fees; Not all Federal recreation agencies participate in the program. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority site does not issue the passes, yet they might honor the Senior and Access Passes for camping discounts. (inquire locally); Some facilities and activities on Federal recreation lands are managed by private concessionaires.  Pineview & Strawberry are two such properties managed by a concessionaire.  The concessionaires charge for their services as any private company does.

Camping fee discounts using the passes does work even when the venue is concessionaire managed, but only reduces the basic camping fee.  It does NOT reduce the additional fees charged for hook-ups such as electrical service.  I haven’t camped at Strawberry in 2 years, but I have always been able to launch my boat at any of the several launch ramps without paying any additional fees while I was camping there.  The concessionaire campground host always gave me a pass to place on my windshield that allowed launching my boat without paying an additional launch fee.

As to the forest service worker you spoke with, I would have to call BS on his comments.  Local workers don’t have the authority to change Federal policy.  It doesn’t matter if they want to or not.  If the USFS is actually managing a property, they are bound by Federal law to honor any of the benefits offered the pass holder.  There are a couple of exceptions to this – for example, no pass will get you into the Mount Rushmore venue.  A concessionaire does NOT have to honor those benefits if their contract gives them full management control on those issues.

I have conversed with my federal representatives several times over the years regarding this issue.  I get the same response from the fence posts in my back yard – crickets.

[Redrebel]

Bob you were right, it was a lot of BS. We had about a 45 minute conversation BS’ing back-and-forth of ideas on how to make things better and why things are the way they are. A big thing he mentioned is his honesty of the US forest service has no business managing Pineview. On a sidenote, I mentioned on the Pineview thread about my contact in the USAO office. Don’t kill the messenger but from my understanding of the information I got is that the US forest service is footing the bill for the Pineview projects but it is planned by the county.
Going back to the fees in the off-season. The conversation was more of waiving fees because the concessionaire is not providing the service at the time. Especially when gates are starting to be locked and bathrooms are locked up. However, they can still put tickets on peoples cars, but they can’t pump the toilet.

[Itcntogofishin]

I used my pass and camped at Strawberry in October. 1/2 off for camping and full price for boat launch. The 1/2 off does not count on double spots. All of the National Forrest campgrounds are concessionaires. At least the ones that close in the winter.

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Strawberry has a new contractor and they charge everyone for boat launch. However they closed up after the second weekend in October. I asked about boat ramp charges when they leave. The lady was pretty sure no charges. I would check with the marina.