The purpose of recreation benefit estimation is to facilitate comparisons between recreation and alternative public investment opportunities. It provides a means to answering the important question of how scaree public resources should be alloted to activities for which there is no market indicator of value. Some methods of recreation benefit estimation are compared. Comparisons are based upon data collected in a survey of recreationists at Whitney Point Reservoir, Broome County, New York, during the summer of 1966. Recreation development in this area has required a significant expenditure of public resources, as well as sacrifice in the flood control capability of a dam. These development costs, justified with little idea of benefits that would result, are an example of the need for improving techniques of recreation benefit estimation.