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Among some hikers in the San Francisco Bay Area, the quad-straining trail to the summit of 4,344-ft. Mount St. Helena near Calistoga, Calif., is known as "the stairway to heaven" for its panoramic views of the Napa and Sonoma valleys. These views, however, soon may be off-limits to visitors - the latest victim of the Golden State's staggering budget crisis. The trail sits within Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, one of up to 100 state parks in California that might be closed by Labor Day to help eliminate a budget gap of $26 billion. While...
This epiphany certainly didn't happen overnight. Most states have sliced parks budgets for the better part of the past decade - in some cases shrinking ledger sheets by as much as 70%. In Colorado, for example, Bonny Lake State Park in the Eastern Plains near the Kansas border had been open year-round but will now be closed from October through April and will trim its staff from four employees to one. "At the same time we're cutting back, we have one of the fastest growing states in the country, full of people who come here for the beauty...
Nonprofit organizations and individuals can help ease the burden for parks, saving states money by volunteering for typically salaried jobs, such as trail maintenance and trash patrol. Such is the case at Schodack Island State Park near Albany, N.Y. When the state announced last year plans to close the park for three winter months, local residents banded together and lobbied the state to let them assume responsibility for certain everyday operations and keep it open year-round. (Read "Indiana Dunes State Park...
Some state parks are seeking partnerships with independent vendors, who pay franchise fees to operate certain facilities owned by the state. These kinds of agreements exist in a handful of states, including California, where, for example, Angel Island State Park, near San Francisco, has a number of concessions and ferry operators that pay annual fees based on revenue they earn by operating in the park. (Read " 'Eco-Therapy' for Environmental Depression...
...Suicide Act of 1961, "a person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another" faces up to 14 years in prison. To get around the law, more than 100 British citizens have traveled to Switzerland to end their lives at Dignitas, an assisted-suicide clinic in Forch, near Zurich. But so far, no one who has accompanied a person to Dignitas has faced prosecution after returning to the U.K. The vagueness of the law pushed Debbie Purdy, a British woman suffering from multiple sclerosis who plans to end her life at the clinic, to approach the court about...