Seniors grab U.S. park passes before hike
BOISE, Idaho — Seniors are snapping up so many lifetime passes good for U.S. national parks and other recreation areas ahead of a steep price increase later this month that some government agencies have run out and started issuing vouchers.
The America the Beautiful Lifetime Senior Pass has been available to buyers 62 and older for $10 for the past two decades. On Aug. 28, the price is going up 700 percent, to $80, after a measure passed by Congress late last year.
Recently retired Paul Dunham of Yuba City, Calif., picked one up last week at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in central Idaho.
“I said, ‘Hey, I’m a senior. Any decent rates?’ ” he said, expecting to pay $30 for a day visit to the high desert area known for its ancient lava flows.
Instead, for $10 he got the lifetime senior pass that’s recognized at more than 2,000 recreation areas run by six federal agencies that include the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
“I don’t say many thanks to the U.S. government about anything,” Dunham, 64, said after discovering the deal. “But I will this time.”
Out-of-the-way Craters of the Moon still has the lifetime passes, but other areas that draw more visitors have run out, and officials authorized a rain check policy in mid-July. The policy allows people to use vouchers instead of the lifetime passes, and ultimately exchange them for one of the plastic, credit card-sized senior passes when they become available.
Some sites normally sell only a few hundred passes a year, Tom Crosson, the National Parks Service’s chief of public affairs, said in an email to The Associated Press. “Now, they are selling that many in a day.”