Red Rock's toll putting park in black

Entrance fees collected since last year at the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area are paying off.

Old picnic benches are being replaced, and a new toll booth and a new rest room are being installed from monies collected since the fee station opened last November at the entrance to the conservation area, about 15 miles west of Las Vegas.

All told, $658,144 had been collected as of Wednesday, said Dave Wolf, conservation area manager for the Bureau of Land Management's Las Vegas office.

"We've been watching the place deteriorate, and we haven't been able to do anything about it. Now we can," Wolf said.

The move to charge $5 to enter Red Rock Canyon was part of a national program to impose or increase fees at national parks and other federal recreation areas. The fees are the first ever for the BLM, where 17 sites, including Red Rock, have begun charging daily camping and entrance fees.

While Red Rock Canyon is renowned as a recreation area, in 1990 Congress granted it national conservation status and doubled its size in 1994.

The money collected at Red Rock also includes fees from the Oak Creek Canyon campgrounds, on State Route 159 between Bonnie Springs and Red Rock, and commercial bus tour permits. "But the vast majority of it is from the fee station collections," Wolf said.

Included are the $20 annual Red Rock passes that have been sold to Las Vegas Valley residents, he said. As of last week, 5,000 were sold.

Another improvement for the 100,000-acre conservation area planned for the end of this year's summer season, also paid for by the entrance fee, is a permanent rest room. The rest room will replace a Port-a-pot near the toll booth.

Also the parking lot at the entrance is being enlarged, and the new roadway to the entrance, which is now gravel, will be paved using the fees, Wolf said.

A $5 fee is collected from cars as they enter the 13-mile loop or as drivers head for the Visitor Center. Hikers and bicyclists are not charged.

"Our attitude about that was we wanted to do whatever little we could to encourage nonmotorized use," Wolf said, "so not charging hikers and bicyclists a fee seemed to be something we could do."

However, next year the BLM expects to begin charging mountain bikers a $5 fee at Cottonwood Valley to pedal off-road. But local mountain bikers will be able to purchase a $20 annual pass similar to the one for Red Rock, Wolf said.

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