Getting soaked

Floating the Grand Canyon could get a lot more expensive for private boaters. The National Park Service is seeking public input on a proposal to increase the per-person cost for rafting Lees Ferry to Diamond Creek from $90 to $310. The cost of floating Diamond Creek to Pearce Ferry, now free, would increase to $55/person. The $25 lottery permit fee would remain unchanged.

The NPS said the increase is needed to cover restoration, mitigation, monitoring, emergency response, river patrol, private boater check-ins and associated costs. The fees have not changed since 1998.

“Funds from this proposed increase will allow the park to better cover the expenses needed to protect the Colorado River corridor and mitigate and restore the corridor after recreational use,” Dana Sullivan, River Operations Chief, said on the NPS website.

As expected, the news has roiled the private boater community like the canyon’s infamous rapids themselves. Some boaters express concern that the increase will price out regular boaters. “It’s already hard to get a permit and then foot the bill for some of these trips,” Kestrel Kunz, protection director of the Southern Rockies Program at American Whitewater, told SFGATE.

Kunz said while her organization does not directly oppose the increase, it raises many questions. Private boating comes in at a lower entry point than commercial trips, which can run $5,000 - $8,000, she said. “That has allowed more types of people of different economic backgrounds to experience what is truly the trip of a lifetime,” she said.

Kunz also pointed out that families will suffer the brunt. “All of a sudden that’s $1,200 or $1,500 of an increase, when originally, it was going to be a couple of hundred dollars, and that’s just for the fee to the park,” she said. 

However, at least one prominent group, the Grand Canyon Private Boaters’ Association, is onboard with the increase. “Obviously, we’re not happy about $220 per person increase but realize the necessity of funding the park’s operation,” John Vrymoed, president of the association, said in a statement provided to SFGATE. He pointed out that spread over 16 days – the typical length of a Grand trip – the increase comes to about $14 a day.

NPS is soliciting public comment through Feb. 15. You can put in your 2 centavos (or more) at: tinyurl.com/yckddccc. If approved, the new fees would go into effect March 1, 2025.