Hey guys, I don't think anyone else here cares. Let's not turn this into a fight.
You both are correct in several points, and I have some information that I posted early on that I should repeat.
Here is what I know:
The PCTA dropped the Whitney Access fee unilaterally. When I talked with the two people, they did not mention any particular incident or issue that brought them to change the situation. The only things are that:
1. Practically nobody was using the Main Whitney Trail to exit or resupply, so the fee was being charged needlessly.
2. There was a large amount of misunderstanding by hikers thinking they needed to pay the fee to summit Mt Whitney.
The PCTA people I spoke with just felt that it was simply "a good thing" to take some pressure off the Main Mt Whitney trail. They thought they were doing the wilderness a favor.
I also think they were making their own lives easier by not collecting the money and not sending a check to Inyo. Handling money is a big deal for agencies.
On the Inyo side, that office was taken completely by surprise by the change. The money coming in was significant enough that doing without it caused concern.
One of the two people I spoke with implied she was a USFS employee. But we all know different government offices do things without consulting others. I think that is the case here. I think it was a management decision made in a void.
