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Growing up in the Bay Area, wilderness didn’t play a big role in my family life. We got outside in local and regional parks. There is no better feeling than hanging out with the whole familia on a hot summer day grilling carne asada, eating juicy watermelon with lime and playing soccer until it gets too dark to see the ball anymore.

But, while those experiences will be forever cherished, there was something missing. After working in national parks across the country, the word that comes to mind is grandeur.

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If Donald Trump and his secretary of interior, Ryan Zinke, get their way, millions of people will be shut out from that experience of wonder and awe, as fees to visit our national parks skyrocket from $30 to $70.

The ocean sunsets and pygmy forests of Salt Point State Park, on the California coast north of Jenner, are where I learned about the grandeur and beauty of our public lands. But, growing up, the jagged peaks of the Grand Tetons, the grizzly bears and sulfuric geysers of Yellowstone, the vanilla smell of ponderosas and crisp waters of Lake Tahoe, and the granite formations and frigid waterfalls of Yosemite were inaccessible to me.

In college I realized, thanks to a professor, that “normal” people went backpacking. My world suddenly opened up. I knew of nature and wilderness as special places, but I never had the opportunity to experience them for myself. As the son of immigrants, there were a lot of barriers keeping me away from enjoying the majestic outdoors, including transportation, language, culture, knowledge and cost.

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Manjoo: Clean air was once an achievable political goal I was fortunate to find opportunities that allowed me to overcome those barriers. At age 21, I spent four nights in Yosemite. It was the most transformative experience of my young adult life. I saw the stars like I had never seen them before. It was obvious to me that I was happiest when I was outdoors.

This experience changed my plans for my life. I decided to pursue a career in our national parks. I worked in Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Virgin Islands, Alcatraz and Mount Rainier. While I already knew there was inequity in accessing the outdoors, it became even more apparent to me. Park visitors are overwhelmingly affluent and overwhelmingly white.

Increasing park fees will only exacerbate this issue. The divide between those who can afford to enjoy our iconic landscapes and those who cannot will deepen.

Secretary Zinke says that the fee increase would help us catch up on the maintenance backlog for our parks. I have heard some well-intentioned people agree with him, arguing that our parks are being loved to death and that increasing fees will discourage visitation. As a park ranger I experienced these maintenance issues first hand but this fee increase is not a solution.

What Zinke doesn’t want you to know is that the fee increase would only raise $70 million per year when the deferred maintenance backlog is already over $11.3 billion. And at the same time that Zinke wants to raise fees, Trump proposes to cut $297 million from the National Park Service budget.

Don’t believe for even a second that this plan to more than double fees to enter our national parks is about what is best for the parks or the people who visit them. The only thing the plan to hike fees for our national parks will accomplish is to shut out more working families from the joy and healing power of exploring our nation’s most beautiful places.

Alfonso Orozco works for a national conservation organization and volunteers for Latino Outdoors, which connects Latino communities with nature and outdoor experiences. He grew up in Oakland and currently lives in Vermont.