MSH Permits now required in November.

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Charley
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MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by Charley » May 4th, 2023, 10:40 am

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/gifford ... ecid=81369

I don't know when this changed, but I do know I hiked up on November 6, 2019; the weather was unusually great, and it wasn't crowded. They keep ratcheting up the length of time a permit is required, and thus reducing the ability of people to make an affordable trip in the shoulder seasons.

Is the intent to reduce crowding, or just to raise more money?

I can't find any reporting on this either- the latest news I can find was when the MSHI restricted the number back in 2021. . . but hadn't changed the dates of the free, self-issue permit season (at the time, it began November 1).
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Bosterson
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Re: MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by Bosterson » May 4th, 2023, 1:18 pm

Charley wrote:
May 4th, 2023, 10:40 am
Is the intent to reduce crowding, or just to raise more money?
Is this a rhetorical question? I think the history of all of these permits, fees, extended periods, etc makes it pretty clear the answer is the latter. In the most recent round of expanded permit discussion, the Gifford more or less explicitly said that they see permit fees as a good source of fundraising.
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retired jerry
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Re: MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by retired jerry » May 4th, 2023, 2:22 pm

I dunno

I think they're motivated by reducing crowds. They have this idea that Wilderness should be unaffected by man. They'll tolerate a few humans but they don't want crowds.

I love wilderness and it's an amazing idea that's taken hold, to have areas that aren't developed by humans. But if there are a few ribbons of the wilderness that do get crowded, then that's a reasonable compromise. It's wonderful that we can experience it. If you want solitude, most of the wilderness will still give you that, just go off trail or on obscure trails.

It's unreasonable for people to expect solitude at a busy area in the wilderness.

The MSH permits are different in that there are people making money off it. If they let more people get permits they'd get more money.

Just wasting time discussing unimportant issues, not arguing I'm right and anyone else is wrong :)

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Re: MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by drm » May 5th, 2023, 7:09 am

While I don't know specifics of the MSH situation, I know that crowds and fundraising go hand-in-hand for Mt Adams permits. Crowds cause impacts and the fees pay for handling them - cleaning up trash and waste, maintaining trailhead facilities, and helping people who get themselves in trouble. The Mt Adams fees directly pay for rangers who go up there every weekend during the peak climbing season, though I think last year they had problems recruiting enough staff.

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Charley
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Re: MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by Charley » May 10th, 2023, 8:41 pm

Maybe I'm just cranky because I keep finding myself squeezed by permit systems getting ever tighter and ever more expensive.
  • These permit systems are often justified to the public as a response to crowding, but are applied to places or times when there are no crowds (weekdays, remote trailheads or routes, December).
  • These permit systems are often justified as a means to fund improvements, but the funding plan fails, or the improvements never seem to happen, or would have happened anyway, but now can free up funding for something else.
  • These permits are punitive to low-impact visitors, but often have little effect on high impact use (I'm looking at you, snowmobile crowd). Seriously, if the goal is to keep the mountain quiet, uncrowded, and clean, why the heck are they allowing sleds up there? It's seriously absurd!
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Water
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Re: MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by Water » May 10th, 2023, 11:59 pm

Mt St Helens.png
They run a $224,000 surplus on permits for Mt. St. Helens. Yet manage to have $100,000 in deferred maintenance for the 'climb route'. In March of 2023 the Secure Rural Schools Resource Advisory Committee approved without a modicum of discussion or debate, an additional $5 per permit to raise an additional $125,000 from climbers to reach $500,000/year from climbers. More revenue than any other site in the GPNF, including JRO, and with hugely lower operating costs.

This while dropping fee proposals for OHV use, the same as in MHNF. The USFS is absolutely discriminating against usergroup and using them as a cash cow to subsidize other activities in the forest. The Mt. Adams permit fee was also raised, despite that program being revenue neutral ($3,000 in the green, one of 4 sites out of 37 to be so).

As far as the sites that went through the most recent fee proposal, you can see the most developed amenity areas have the greatest deferred maintenance backlog and the climbing programs (St. Helens and Adams) have the best ratio of revenue to expense. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... ue&sd=true - one thing to keep in mind is GPNF's predicted revenue numbers are fake for any site that allows inter-agency passes. They make wild assumptions about the number of visitors purchasing a pass when in reality a huge amount of visitors will have already bought passes outside of GPNF that are accepted within it. So they will never realize their predicted revenues.

is it possible those idiots just didn't update their website after they stupidly extended the permits last fall 'because the weather is nice, climb rangers will be on the route daily through November' - then promptly had the weather change to crap for the entirety of November basically?

Then access this April was marginal at best and GPNF had an absolutely ridiculous policy of requiring people to check their social media or websites (because we know how often they update those!) daily to see if the road was officially closed or not, and if it was people could get a refund including the Booz Allen fees, but if it was just listed as hazardous a refund could be collected, sans private contractor fees, by doing so the day after on rec.gov. convoluted af. Instead of just blanket refunding the month of April like would be reasonable.
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drm
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Re: MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by drm » May 11th, 2023, 3:31 pm

Do you have the url for the above snapshot? When I lookd up the fee increase proposal, they say the annual cost is in the range $358,900 - $457,900.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DO ... 091876.pdf

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Water
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Re: MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by Water » May 11th, 2023, 4:58 pm

Same place your document is listed:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/giff ... width=full
https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DO ... 091878.pdf page 38

keep in mind some of the expenses here are such:
Cowlitz Tribe Representation* $39,000 Maybe a video about TCP and why mtn important and make part of required video to watch to get the permit.

Update climbing video $30,000

Trailhead and Facilities Construction* $1,000- $100,000 Replace/Update: Signs, Kiosks, Fee Tubes, Gates, Trash Receptacles (for trash and WAG bags). Rebuild tent pads, replace fire rings, maybe delineate a few more bivouac sites.
These are one-time fees. It is absolutely embarrassing that FS is making a proposal with things like "maybe". If this was any kind of business than needed a bank's approval that type of language would be laughed at as unprofessional and untenable to secure funding. But the bar for getting it from users is way lower I guess. The very lowest expenditure cost on the entire list is $2,000 for trail and facility maintenance.

2023-05-11_17-25-54.png
I can't quite figure out how to compare existing O&M costs which they clearly arrive at a number of $151,000 and proposed, and apparently neither can the forest circus. From a transparency perspective for public comment or honest evaluation of the proposal by the SRS RAC, this is absolute garbage and completely unacceptable. They're idiots to co-mingle existing costs, proposed expansion costs, and one-time costs the fee increase is supposed to sustain. I tried to ask, what am I supposed to do beyond this?

But they've shown a $224,000 surplus for at least one year for this site from what they present. Should cover the $69,000 for updating videos. The $100,000 for trailhead and facilities construction, $2,000 for trail and facility maintenance, $20,000 for secure storage facility for SAR equipment, $10,000 for training, $10,000 for volcano rescue. Oops that's $2k over the net, remove the trail and facility maint.

Or are they really paying $20,000 per year for a secure storage facility for SAR equipment? egads! You can get a 10x30 secure storage space for $180 a month in Woodland WA... $20,000 would pay for the next 9 years!

the FS gets an F grade for their reports, straight up garbage. Shame taxpayer dollars were spent on someone putting this crap together.
Last edited by Water on May 11th, 2023, 11:31 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Water
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Re: MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by Water » May 11th, 2023, 5:05 pm

And the Mt. Adams proposal is even more laughable:
Trailhead and Facilities Construction $25,000 - $500,000 Support implementation of the South Climb Trailhead Improvement Project, which includes replacing toilets, delineating parking, adding bivouac sites, etc
$25k to 500k. Is this a joke? No additional information provided to the public, transparent as mud. But maybe they can really get it done for $25k... :lol:
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Re: MSH Permits now required in November.

Post by drm » May 12th, 2023, 6:51 am

It means the design and permitting process has not finished yet.

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