The passage of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program legislation in 1996 marked the beginning of recreation fee programs targeted for users of Federally designated wilderness in the United States. This legislation has different implications for wilderness management than for other recreation programs because wilderness as a recreation resource has unique management policies and directives that may affect whether and how to implement recreation user fees. Wilderness managers implementing fee programs are faced with a variety of decisions including whether to use fees, how to collect fees,...

The 1964 Wilderness Act calls for ..".an enduring resource of wilderness...for the use and enjoyment of the American people" and lists among the attributes of wilderness "outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation." These statements confirm experiential opportunities as one of the primary purposes of wilderness. Furthermore, by signing the act into law, Congress declared that wilderness experiences are so important they are worthy of protection by national legislation. Wilderness experiences have been credited with everything from personal...