The following editorial appeared in the Twin Falls, Idaho Times-News on June 25, 2003.
We'll say this again: If you visit the Sawtooth, don't buy a permit. If the Forest Service writes you a parking ticket, don't pay the fine.
Three cheerful owl-hoots for the Ketchum and Hailey city councils. They've taken a stand against odious admission fees in the Sawtooth National Forest.
Other Idaho elected officials should join them. Especially our congressional delegation.
We'll suggest the next step a little later. Keep reading.
The Sawtooth forest has required parking permits at selected trailheads for the past several years, as part of a national fee program. Banners across Ketchum and Hailey's main streets have exhorted hikers to buy the permits.
No longer. Both towns recently banned the banners. Hurrah.
We've said this before, and we'll say it again: If you're planning to visit the Sawtooth, don't buy a permit. If the Forest Service writes you a parking ticket, don't pay the fine.
Promoting civil disobedience is an unusual position for this newspaper. But this fee program is both insulting and dishonest.
In general, the basic idea of user fees is perfectly legitimate. There's nothing wrong with asking specific users of specific services to help pay specific costs.
But these fees aren't like that. The Forest Service wants you to pay for the mere privilege of walking in your own national forest -- a forest that you already support with your taxes.
Further, this pay-to-plod program relies on insidiously circular logic. The Forest Service brass say the fee program is experimental. It's designed to see whether people will pay. Yet they also say the fees are mandatory.
In other words, they force you to pay. And when you pay, they count you as a supporter.
That's the kind of coercive democracy you'd find in Castro's Cuba. No wonder the Forest Service can smugly assert that the fees are widely accepted.
The banner bans in Ketchum and Hailey are a noble gesture. But they're no match for the political and bureaucratic steamroller behind these fees. Unless we want permanent turnstiles in our woods, Idahoans should unite in forceful opposition.
That includes our congressional delegation -- especially U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, whose waffling on this issue is a continuing disappointment.
So we have a suggestion for Hailey's Scott Phillips, the Forest Service retiree who is gamely fighting the fees. How about organizing a "Costin' Fee Party"?
One Saturday this summer, invite Idaho taxpayers to the trailheads for a relaxing protest hike. Pass out buttons that say, "I already paid."
Invite elected officials from all levels of government. Schedule it during the congressional recess, so our senators and representatives can take part. If a dignitary doesn't want to risk a fine, he can hitch a ride to the trailhead.
But remember this: Nobody has ever been prosecuted for not buying a permit. Not one person. That's because federal lawyers have bigger fish to fry than backwoods parking tickets.
That means the fee program is toothless. Idahoans are free to register their opposition by not paying.
If enough of us do that, maybe Congress and the Forest Service will get the message.