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Lawsuit Filed Over Fees On Mt. Evans Road

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May 6, 2008 9:10 pm US/Mountain

Lawsuit Filed Over Fees On Mt. Evans Road

Contact reporter Rick Sallinger at rsallinger@cbs.com

Reporting
Rick Sallinger
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MOUNT EVANS, Colo. (CBS4) ―

Click to enlarge 1 of 1: A ranger checks to see if a vehicle parked at the Summit Lake parking lot has paid the fee.
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West Slope No Fee Coalition

A lawsuit has been filed that challenges the fee charged by the United States Forest Service for a trip up Mount Evans.

The drive is on America's highest paved road. The U.S. Forest Service has been charging $10 a car to drive on that state highway if the car stops along the way.

CBS4's Rick Sallinger has been reporting on the fee controversy. He took a hidden camera there about a year ago posing as a tourist.

"We just wanted to show how the fee was being applied and how some people were avoiding it," Sallinger said.

Now that fee is being challenged in a Denver federal court. Those who filed the lawsuit, a group called the West Slope No Fee Coalition, hope it will become a class-action case. Dave Scherer is one of those whose name is on the suit. He claims the federal government can't charge you to drive on a state road.

"The state gives us the right to drive on the road and the Forest Service is charging us for parking on the state right-of-way simply to walk across the Mount Evans corridor," Scherer said.

In fact last year, CBS4 saw Forest Service employees checking if cars had paid on City of Denver Parks property.

"We're providing a service and we're also protecting the fragile ecosystem that's up there," a forest ranger said in 2007.

"The act says the Forest Service cannot charge for scenic overlooks, they cannot charge for parking and cannot charge entrance fees," Scherer said. "All of which they are doing at Mount Evans."

A Forest Service spokesman told Sallinger they haven't seen the lawsuit and would have to run it by legal counsel before commenting.

The Forest Service says it does not know if it will be charging a fee this year, or how much that fee would be.

The road should re-open sometime after Memorial Day.

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