National Park Service slammed for spending up to $1,368 per visitor at Alaska park

Alaska's national parks are singled out by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in a new report on the National Park Service titled "Parked: How Congress’ Misplaced Priorities Are Trashing Our National Treasures." And the attention lavished on Alaska’s national parks isn’t positive. "Given the remoteness of 'the Last Frontier' state, it does not come as a surprise that Alaska is home to some of the least attended and least accessible units," Coburn reports. "However, it may come as a shock that one park unit in Alaska costs more than $1,300 per visitor to operate, the highest subsidy per visitor in the entire National Park System."So on what park visited by a mere 1,390 people did the Park Service spend $1.9 million for a subsidy of a whopping $1,368 per visitor?  It's Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, the park unit made famous in recent years by a confrontation between a pair of park rangers and 70-year-old riverboat skipper Jim Wilde from Central. The incident divided state residents. Some thought the park service engaged in Gestapo-like tactics in the takedown of Wilde on the Yukon River; others thought the old man only got what he deserved for challenging the authority of rangers...more