OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — A visit to the national park that dominates the North Olympic Peninsula will cost more as of June 1.
Olympic National Park released a schedule of future fee hikes Friday.
The vehicle fee, good for seven days, will increase by $5, from $15 to $20. The annual pass will rise from $30 to $40.
Fee increases will continue in 2016 and 2017.
The vehicle fee will rise another $5 to $25, and the annual pass will cost another $10, rising to $50, next year.
The date for the change has not been determined, according to Barb Maynes, park spokeswoman.
Neither fee will rise in 2017, but motorcyclists, now charged $5 a visit, will see the fee rise $5 annually until they are paying $20 a visit in 2017, a total increase of 400 percent.
The annual wilderness pass, now $30, will increase to $35 on June 1, remain at $35 in 2016 and rise to $45 in 2017.
It’s the first fee increase at the park since 2006.
The National Park Service is increasing fees at the 131 parks throughout the nation that charge entrance fees.
They will generate revenue to fund a backlog of projects and spruce up parks before the National Park Service’s 2016 centennial celebration.
Superintendent Sarah Creachbaum proposed a three-year phase-in of fees to the national office because of public comments received after the park proposed the increases in October.
“That was suggested by the public as a way that would make things easier for our local community,” Creachbaum said Friday.
“We suggested that . . . and that’s what they approved” about a week ago.
The park received 157 written comments on the fee hike proposal, Maynes said.
Maynes said park officials expect to receive about 30 percent more annually from fees after the increase.
In 2014, the park took in $2.6 million in fee revenue. Thirty percent of that would be $780,000; however, “every year, fee revenue fluctuates a little bit,” Maynes said.
The park retains 80 percent of fee revenues; the remaining 20 percent supports projects in parks that do not charge fees, including the Lincoln Memorial and National Mall.
Creachbaum said the fee increases must be used in areas that have direct connection to park visitors, such as visitor center exhibits, roadway work or work on the park’s six sewage treatment plants.
The park has $23 million in “critical deferred maintenance” projects as part of $200 million in maintenance projects that need to be completed, officials have said.
Fee revenue has funded rehabilitation of 90 miles of park trails and electrical service in the Kalaloch campground and is now being used for a $1.14 million project to renovate the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center, which is expected to open within the next couple of weeks, Maynes said.
The park also is increasing camping fees to $15-$22 from $10-$18.
It is discontinuing its $5 overnight wilderness use permit but will increase nightly wilderness fees to $5 from $2; that fee will rise to $7 in 2017.
Recreational vehicle sewage dump fees increase to $10 from $5.
The park also will charge $7 for adults and $3 for youths ages 6-15 for ranger-led snowshoe hikes. Previously, the park recommended a $5 donation.
The park offers free and discounted access to children 15 and younger, people 62 and older, and members of the military.
