No entrance fees Saturday at national parks, recreation areas

If you love the great outdoors but hate giving money to the government, Saturday is your day.

To mark National Public Lands Day, parks and recreation areas across the country will be waiving their usual entrance fees. That includes parks within in the general Las Vegas vicinity: Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Death Valley National Park in California, Zion National Park in Utah and Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

Great Basin National Park in Nevada is not on the Park Service's list of fee-free parks, but it also doesn't have an entrance station where fees are collected.

A number of parks in the region and across the country will hold volunteer events, special presentations and gift-shop discounts to mark the occasion. Lake Mead will host a volunteer clean-up at Government Wash, a popular summer recreation spot, with free T-shirts and federal park entrance coupons for the first 100 participants.

More information about Saturday's fee-free celebrations is available at www.publiclandsday.org.

Remember, though: Saturday is National Public Lands Day. Nevada's state parks will still want your money.

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.