USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

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Aimless
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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by Aimless » June 16th, 2022, 7:37 pm

BB, I think you misunderstood drm's point, which was that even if one must pay a small fee or must acquire a permit, this is merely a modest limitation upon "public access" to public lands. You were speaking as if any limit at any time for any reason was the equivalent of total exclusion of the public. If you go out and take a look, I think you'll find quite a few members of the public are out there enjoying public lands.

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drm
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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by drm » June 17th, 2022, 7:12 am

Yes, things change. Lots of things change. We older folks sometimes struggle with that - maybe you are older than me, maybe not. But the fact that rules change should be seen as a given.

But when I started backpacking in the 1980s, we had to mail out permit requests in March for our summer backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada. They were free (except for the stamps), but the hassle of planning all my summer trips months in advance was huge. It's all much better now, even though I do have to pay a small fee in some cases. Most of those trips were in national forests on the east side of the Sierra, not national parks.

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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by BigBear » June 17th, 2022, 8:38 am

So, let's get this straight, the limited number of passes really don't restrict public access because there are a few lucky ones who can get the passes, and the fees are needed to pay for the forest services but are really just for a trivial amount that only offset the cost of issuing the passes? Right? Sounds like something a politician would say. It's limited, but not really. The revenue is needed, but it really isn't.

Admittedly, the influx of people without any meaningful increase in the supply of places to recreate is causing an over-use of facilities. The need is for more trails. To say a restricted entry on public lands is really not limiting your future access is just plain stupid. It is a restricted entry and you will be pushed somewhere else that will result in a limit placed there. And one day you will find you can't go anywhere unless you have a pre-purchased limited-entry pass.

In the last few years, fees have been getting a bit higher than merely covering the cost of issuing the permits. Tillamook County now has a $10 parking fee for its formerly public beaches (at least they installed port-a-potties) and Lane County has a very restrictive fee for all of its so-called public beaches and parks (so restrictive, you cannot be a tourist and hope to park or walk there because there are no rangers or machines to acquire a pass on-site, only rangers to ticket your vehicles for non-compliance. Seriously, check it out for yourself, we looked all over for the machines, there were none). The CRG Scenic Highway is now limited, virtually all of the Central Oregon Cascades and now Mt. Hood. The freeways outside Portland will soon be toll roads, but ironically not the freeways within the city limits. Sure it's just $5 here, $10 there and soon to be $20 if people keep ignoring it. It all adds up. But are the amenities increasing? For the most part, no. There are a couple of extra port-a-potties but the daily collections at these trailheads are enough to pay for a cement pad and actual running water.

After you add up all these trivial little fees over the course of a year, what does it come to? What did you really get for all of those fees that you weren't getting before? How little or how big does the fee need to get before your budget doesn't allow for it? And at what point do you realize that the heat in that frying pan is now lethal as the temperature of those fees keeps inching up? I had a boss that always said it's not the deep knife wound that will cause you to bleed to death, its the accumulation of all those paper cuts.

During this past couple of years, there's been an exponential increase in those paper cuts and some of them are fairly deep. The limits in Lane and Tillamook County most-assuredly violate Oregon Access Law, but people keep looking the other way, put their hands in their pockets, and kick at the dirt.

It will be interesting to see where we will be 10 years from now and how trivial all of those fees and limited access permits are. Tick, tick, tick, chip, chip (ouch), chip.

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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by Bosterson » June 17th, 2022, 10:49 am

BigBear wrote:
June 17th, 2022, 8:38 am
What did you really get for all of those fees that you weren't getting before? How little or how big does the fee need to get before your budget doesn't allow for it?
I think this is really the crux of it.

Dean, I think the point that you are making and going back and forth with BigBear over is true, but in a semantic sense - can the FS levy fees? (yes), does the levying of a fee in one place prevent you from going to other places without fees? (no).

But in terms of the broader question, those are strawmen you are setting up to knock down. I don't think anyone has genuinely claimed the opposite of either of those points. The question instead is whether the fees/permits are necessary, whether they are adding anything, and whether they will accomplish their ostensible justifications. Unless you take it as axiomatic that permits are needed/justified if the FS says they are, then these are reasonable questions to ask.

For instance, you stated the Hood climbing permit will be needed for SAR. But my understanding is that the FS is not more than nominally involved in SAR operations. They certainly do not fund the volunteer SAR organizations (Cragrats, PMR), and they do not run SAR operations either (the county sheriff does). The idea that forcing people to buy a permit will make them somehow become more knowledgeable about safe climbing seems like a dubious proposition. The contention that there has been some recent increase in rescues on Hood doesn't match my memory of the past few years - if anything, I feel like there have been fewer incidents on Hood since before the pandemic. And realistically, I don't think most incidents are due to people trying to climb with crampons duct taped to their loafers - climbing is dangerous, and the only surefire way to prevent all SAR incidents is to prevent all climbing in the first place.

I think the metastasizing permit schemes in recent years do indicate that the end state is going to be permits in most or all places. The question is then whether that would be a good outcome. As an example, consider the CC permits:

The FS contended there was dramatic, harmful overuse (though only documented in a few spots) and permits would reduce overuse and also pay for environmental improvements. But now that the permits are in force, they could not legally charge a fee so no additional revenue is generated and thus no improvements are presumably being made; the limited permits are all scooped up but not all actually used, because online permit systems are easily gamified, which prevents other people from being able to go; the financial impact on users may be "minimal" to some people, they aren't zero, and that certainly influences who can or will go; and the only fees being collected go to a 3rd party government contractor for running the website. So unless one accepts the bottom line that we just needed to prevent a lot of people from going into those wildernesses, the outcome has been that we now pay a service charge so that fewer people get to use those public lands, but there has been no net benefit to the public good.

Apply the same math to a Hood climbing permit and what do you get?
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drm
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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by drm » June 17th, 2022, 11:34 am

Of course permits restrict access to some degree, but in general people have the same possibility of access. Nor is it "a few lucky people." Most of these permits are attempting to spread access out more broadly. They may not do a very good job of that, as the no-show issues demonstrates. But lots of people are still getting in. These are not lotteries in most cases.

Bosterson - that really is the crucial dichotomy. There are plenty of permit plans that are poorly constructed either because they are not well thought out or because achieving the desired goal with the available resource is very challenging. The 7000' altitude limit before requiring a climbing permit on Adams is absurd. Since they really only enforce anything on the South Climb, they should just set a zone for the Lunch Counter and above. Maybe add the a zone for the North Cleaver route starting above the glacial lake basecamp. There are plenty of other regulations that just don't work and should be modified or dropped. The requirement to camp at least 200 feet from water is not feasible in many areas. But discussion of issues like these is very different that claiming oppression or that we no longer have access because there are some limits. I have never argued that criticisms of the Central Oregon system are unwarrented.

The fact that the FS itself is not performing SAR now on Mt Hood does not mean that the funds from those permits will not support SAR. The article said the permits will pay for more climbing rangers and I know that having more of them on Adams due to the climbing fees there means that when there is an accident requiring assistance, there often is a ranger already up there, with a radio, and able to assess the situation and determine what course of action is called for. In lesser accidents, they definitely can resolve the situation on the spot, providing minor first aid and helping somebody down. But they can only do that if they are there. Much better than having a member of the public call with a cell phone, assuming that they have one and it wasn't damaged in the accident and they are in a condition where they can call. And I have been up on Lunch Counter and seen rangers assist climbers who were woefully unprepared. Also, since the Cragrats operate on a FS permit, it is possible they could get more support too.

You commented that the 9000' limit doesn't make sense. I have no experience on Hood up high, so I have no idea. But that sounds like a valid point of debate to me, and I am sure others could offer more of that too. But too often (not always of course) we seem to tray into a discussion that is far more stark.

And for the record, I do not support the permit system in the Central Oregon Cascades in it's current form. I can see that something was needed, but the Deschutes NF does seem to be inclined to go farther than any other NF in the region. But I rarely comment because I barely know the area. If a comprehensive backpacking - especially day hiking - system were proposed for an area I know well, I would be a much more regular participant both here and directly with the FS - both criticizing suggestions as well as proposing what I think would be better alternatives.

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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by jvangeld » June 20th, 2022, 1:27 pm

I believe there were even older promises made when the Forest Service was created that Big Bear is referring to. Back in the day, you could build a house on Federally owned lands and live in it. Or build a house, turn it into a hotel, and demand payment for access to your land. This created some problems, and the answer was to end the Homestead Act and turn the remaining Federal lands over to new government entities. But the promise made at that point was, "You may no longer live on this land, but it will be conserved so that you and your children will be able to access it for free forever. No one will be able to build resorts on this land and make you pay to access it."

Well, the Forest Service isn't building hotels and resorts. But it is charging people to access the land. Does that make them worse than the old robber barons? I don't know. But it seems like a broken promise to me.
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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by Aimless » June 20th, 2022, 1:50 pm

Mmmmm. I think the actual promise was a much more general one, that the federal lands would be managed 'for the public good'.
jvangeld wrote:
June 20th, 2022, 1:27 pm
Does that make them worse than the old robber barons? I don't know.
A fellow named Gustavus Myers wrote an interesting book back around the time the Forest Service was created, called (unless my memory is a bit off the mark) "A History of the Great American Fortunes". It contains information that could help you decide the answer to your question. ;)

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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by Chip Down » June 27th, 2022, 4:19 pm

BigBear wrote:
June 16th, 2022, 8:06 am
... chip, chip, chip goes your access)
Notice the lowercase c.
If I was king for a day, I would Chip everybody's access (rollback the restrictions).

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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by Charley » August 4th, 2022, 6:34 pm

Bosterson wrote:
June 14th, 2022, 2:51 pm
Charley wrote:
June 14th, 2022, 1:20 pm
Given the safety concerns, high-alpine impact, viewshed impact, and sanitary concerns (no soil, or at least no waste-decomposing bacteria in the soil), I think alpine climbing permits are among the most sensible and defensible management tools available to land managers.
I don't see any evidence that permits would improve any of those things.
I probably got a little ahead of the logic here. I predict that a permit system would over time reduce the number of climbers (compared to a world in which there is so such system). First, by inconvenience, even without a hard limit on the number per day. Second, I suspect the FS will draw up an actual legal limit, as they do with MSH.

Reducing that number of climbers is key to the effect that I predict.

I am guessing that a smaller number of climbers per day will mean less objective risk to me, strictly because of the reduced number of chances someone does something that puts me at risk. I don't have any evidence for that, but I think the math is sound. :)
Bosterson wrote:
June 14th, 2022, 2:51 pm
It would be interesting to see the numbers, but I feel like there are actually fairly few accidents on the south side compared to the number of people who go up there.
Yeah, I'd need to see numbers. But at least one SAR member reported as much:
I’m a mountain rescue doctor with both PMR and Crag Rats, and this year has been one of the busiest and earliest alpine rescue seasons ever—and I’ve been involved in search and rescue on the mountain since 1998. Normally, we have a few alpine missions every year, mostly during the main volcano-climbing season, from April to July. To date, we’ve had eight missions in the alpine, including a multiday, multiagency search for a missing snowboarder who was found dead after three days. So why the increase in accidents? My colleagues and I can’t help but wonder what’s happening on our mountain.
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-a ... ue-surge/

(An aside, Christopher Van Tilburg is a doctor, and he wrote a ski guide I use; I have no reason not to trust his judgement.)
Bosterson wrote:
June 14th, 2022, 2:51 pm
“Right now we really only have anecdotal information on numbers but we do know it’s impacting the wilderness and parking.”
Again, people are already supposed to fill out self-issue registration to help with potential rescues (and people do fill these out). Charging people a permit fee because the USFS wants better data is absurd. The idea that an increase in climbers is impacting the parking - at Timberline - is absurd...
Agreed.
  • They've probably got pretty good data because I would bet most climbers fill out the current permits.
  • Parking is Timberline's problem (a problem that Timberline has tried to solve, but have failed, after years of opposition from Oregon Wild). MHNF no doubt wants to have a good relationship with Timberline, and climbers are pretty cheap folks, so I can see a dangerous incentive there.
  • As to Wilderness- there is literally a designated Wilderness up there. Say what you will about how "wild" it really is, but the FS is obliged to preserve it. Again, fewer people=less impact. Also, depending on the language of the permit, people might be more likely to use blue bags, etc.
Bosterson wrote:
June 14th, 2022, 2:51 pm
9000 ft is also an absurd and arbitrary threshold. This means that you would need a permit to walk up to Devil's Kitchen, even if you just wanted to go check out what it looks like to be in the crater and had no intention of continuing higher. This also means that all the very patently not inexperienced newbie climbers on all other routes around the whole rest of the mountain will need to buy a permit in advance. Are they going to still require permits year round, even in summer when zero people are climbing the mountain, even if you just want to hike ugly dirt above 9k for the view?
From recent reporting, it looks like they've raised it to 9,500', which is an improvement in my book (I like visiting Illumination Saddle and that's not really a "climb"). I thought about this for a minute, and I think any particular elevation would look arbitrary, but you have to think about how they're going to manage it.

Stationing a climbing Ranger at the Devil's Kitchen would be safe and reasonable: it's got less overhead risk, and it's a nice flat spot to hang out. So a ranger could safely set up camp there and manage the permit system. Stationing a ranger any higher would be risky; putting the permit elevation lower enough to be on safer/flatter ground would basically be so low as to disallow routes that backcountry skiers do for training!
Bosterson wrote:
June 14th, 2022, 2:51 pm
And keep in mind that every permit requires you to buy it through Rec.gov, which funds the Booz Allen Hamilton grifter fund. (I was just hearing from someone about just how many extra fees they tack on if you want to cancel a reservation you were forced to make through that website, and it is frankly astonishing.)
Yeah, I'd rather this was a cheap and well-run government website staffed by unionized Federal employees. But I also wish I got free coffee and back rubs at my job. . .
Bosterson wrote:
June 14th, 2022, 2:51 pm
If they had any intention of improving the climber situation on Hood, the first thing they would do is address the bathroom in the climber kiosk that's been locked for the past decade or two...
Word. I used it once, many, many years ago. I'll always remember the experience fondly.
Believe it or not, I barely ever ride a mountain bike.

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Re: USFS oppression marches on with proposed high-Hood permit

Post by jvangeld » August 5th, 2022, 9:33 am

It seems to me that, as we come out of the time of Covid, people are returning to the old standbys. Before Covid I think a lot of people were seeking out the more obscure places because of crowding at the popular ones. But now, everyone seems to be thinking, "I haven't been to Mt. Hood/The Gorge in five years. Now that I can go there, I will." And so the obscure places are less crowded than they have been, and the popular places are slammed.
Jeremy VanGelder - Friends of Road 4109

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