Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekends

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adamschneider
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Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekends

Post by adamschneider » March 6th, 2018, 9:26 pm

http://www.oregonlive.com/travel/index. ... _hiki.html

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/crgnsa/?cid=FSEPRD572962

Summary: on Saturdays and Sundays from March 31 through July 1, you'll need a permit to hike Dog Mountain. There's no additional cost if you take the cheap-but-woefully-inconvenient Stevenson shuttle; it's $1.50 if you get it at recreation.gov, where 165 permits will be made available each day.

Fine by me... I only ever go on weekdays anyway. (And even then, usually in the afternoon/evening.).

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Bosterson
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Re: Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekend

Post by Bosterson » March 6th, 2018, 11:39 pm

Fine by me.... Dog Mountain is for suckers. 8-)

Question:

All the Oregon THs are still closed, with vague plans to reopen... Angel's Rest? Hamilton requires the vexing Discover Pass, and Table is out of reach for the vast majority of people due to the only legal TH being so much farther away. I know there are other places in the WA Gorge to hike besides these, but I was on Dog a few weeks ago on a sunny afternoon and it was an absolute zoo up top - presumably because there are very few other places to go right now. I get that Dog is a clusterfuck regardless these days, but where exactly are all hikers #166 - ∞ supposed to go?

Also/relatedly: if the parking situation has been resolved and people aren't either blocking traffic or getting hit by passing cars because they parked on the highway, then who cares how many people are on Dog Mountain at once? If 1000 people take the shuttle and want to go goggle at flowers on a Saturday afternoon, why not let them? This reminds me of the complaint about the "wilderness experience" being ruined on South Sister. Why not try to pack as many people as possible onto Dog Mountain at once, thereby leaving the rest of the Gorge open for the rest of us? I'm asking for a friend.
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Guy
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Re: Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekend

Post by Guy » March 7th, 2018, 6:45 am

Bosterson wrote:Fine by me.... Dog Mountain is for suckers. 8-)

Also/relatedly: if the parking situation has been resolved and people aren't either blocking traffic or getting hit by passing cars because they parked on the highway, then who cares how many people are on Dog Mountain at once? If 1000 people take the shuttle and want to go goggle at flowers on a Saturday afternoon, why not let them? This reminds me of the complaint about the "wilderness experience" being ruined on South Sister. Why not try to pack as many people as possible onto Dog Mountain at once, thereby leaving the rest of the Gorge open for the rest of us? I'm asking for a friend.
Exactly crowds on Dog can be managed all in one place, I get that there is now a bald patch on the summit that doesn't look good but is it really detrimental to any plant or animal species on Dog Mt? I would argue no it's purely aesthetic and even that could have been managed without hiking limits with some forethought.

These people will still go hiking venturing out onto the many "unofficial" WA gorge trails places they may not have felt comfortable going before but now they will because its the only option. A lot of these trails receive no official maintenance and are far less capable of taking all the extra hikers.

Just my 2 cents.
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Re: Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekend

Post by squidvicious » March 7th, 2018, 8:25 am

Bosterson wrote:If 1000 people take the shuttle and want to go goggle at flowers on a Saturday afternoon, why not let them?
They can, at least theoretically. The 165/day limit is for people reserving online--ie, drivers. Everyone riding the shuttle gets a permit, only limited by the number of butts they have seats for on the shuttle.

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Re: Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekend

Post by adamschneider » March 7th, 2018, 8:36 am

squidvicious wrote:
Bosterson wrote:If 1000 people take the shuttle and want to go goggle at flowers on a Saturday afternoon, why not let them?
They can, at least theoretically. The 165/day limit is for people reserving online--ie, drivers. Everyone riding the shuttle gets a permit, only limited by the number of butts they have seats for on the shuttle.
How many butts fit on this thing? 30? (60 if you count individual cheeks?)
Image

Multiply that bus by 13 (every half hour between 7:30 and 1:30).

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Re: Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekend

Post by squidvicious » March 7th, 2018, 8:49 am

Yes, that's what's "theoretically" means. If, as posited, 1000 people ride the shuttle, they are free to goggle flowers of a Saturday afternoon.

Logically of course you'd expect they would also be making adjustments to the shuttle system to accommodate the additional people who will be redirected there, but practically... yeah, that's probably not going to happen.

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Re: Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekend

Post by adamschneider » March 7th, 2018, 8:51 am

squidvicious wrote:Logically of course you'd expect they would also be making adjustments to the shuttle system to accommodate the additional people who will be redirected there, but practically... yeah, that's probably not going to happen.
They've shown that they're open to SOME adjustments. When they initially announced the shuttle, the first morning bus didn't leave Stevenson until 10:00, which was crazy.

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xrp
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Re: Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekend

Post by xrp » March 7th, 2018, 5:50 pm

If the problem is parking area consumed, then why are hikers having to have permits?

Cities address overcrowding of parking by metering the public parking spots.

For example, if I take Uber/Lyft to the trailhead, I am not consuming a parking spot. Why would I have to have a permit?

I’d enjoy seeing this challenged in court and beaten as the USFS NW Forest Pass has been.

Thankfully, you do not need NW Forest Pass per the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

ETA: Reading is fundamental, xrp. The permit is supposedly to limit crowding. Probably could be challenged. I don’t think something like Enchantments style permits have ever been challenged.

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Chip Down
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Re: Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekend

Post by Chip Down » March 7th, 2018, 8:51 pm

Great. So now we'll have people clogging up Dog Spine, East Ridge, and other routes that don't require the new permit. How exactly will that advance the stated goal of increased public safety?

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Re: Dog Mountain now requires permits on peak season weekend

Post by adamschneider » March 7th, 2018, 10:33 pm

Chip Down wrote:Great. So now we'll have people clogging up Dog Spine, East Ridge, and other routes that don't require the new permit.
I really doubt that. Most people don't even know about the back side of Dog. The Instagram hordes tend to stick to actual trails, and the kind of people who bushwhack up poison-oak-filled spines weren't doing Dog Mountain on spring weekends anyway.

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