Outdoor recreation areas around the Pacific Northwest have been extremely crowded during the pandemic. Last summer, the Forest Service and county sheriff’s offices began towing cars parked illegally near trailheads on Mount Hood, Mount Adams, and other day-use areas around the region.

In an effort to reduce crowds on Mount St Helens, from April 1 to May 14, the Forest Service will reduce the number of available permits from 500 to 300 per day, according to an agency news release. The Forest Service will also increase the number of permits issued between May 15 and Oct. 31, from 100 to 110 per day, though it will not be enough to offset the reduction. In total, nearly 7,000 fewer permits will be issued this year.

The reduction is due to the need to minimize resource damage, maintain a quality visitor experience, and increase safety during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic by reducing crowding along the route during the primary climbing season. Although going from issuing 500 to 300 permits per day may seem like a lot, in the past they typically only sold the full 500 permits when the weather was sunny and nice.

Many of the 500-person quota went unsold due to poor weather. This 300-person quota helps reign in the crowds on the sunniest of days when crowding is a problem, especially last year. More importantly, this is an improvement over the permit availability last year, when the Forest Service cancelled all permits for the 500-person days due to pandemic restrictions.

Although strenuous, the ascent up Mount St. Helens is considered a non-technical climb, suitable for hikers in good physical condition who are comfortable scrambling on steep, rugged terrain.

All climbing permits are sold online at Recreation.gov.

Check the current open status of the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center, operated by Washington State Parks. More OTO news about Mount St. Helens.

The post Climbing Permit Changes for Mount St Helens appeared first on Out There Venture.

Eventually, Spirit Lake was stabilized with an 8,465-foot-long gravity-feed tunnel that cut through Harrys Ridge to South Coldwater Creek. Unfortunately, that ridge has continued to move each time Mount St. Helens moves throughout the decades. Twelve faults and sheer zones have squeezed and buckled the tunnel, causing engineers to close it several times for repairs. During one closure in the winter of 2016, Spirit Lake rose more than 30 feet. “It was definitely a wake-up call,” says Chris Strebig, a project director with the U.S. Forest Service, the agency that oversees the national monument. 

Rather than wait for a crisis or emergency, the Forest Service has decided to open up a second tunnel. This requires the Forest Service engineers and scientists to drill into the debris field to find the best option, and they need a road in order to move equipment around the debris field. But some ecologists, scientists, and conservation groups oppose the road. It was in a large part at their urging that the federal government created the monument in 1982, setting it aside as a place for “geologic forces and ecological succession to continue substantially unimpeded.” Many plots and experiments from 1980 are still studied today. In many minds, if you drop a road over the Pumice Plain, the research there would effectively be reduced to how life responds after a road is built. And the friction between the two sides is heating up with each new proposal from the Forest Service. Developments and plans have been put on hold for the moment, but it looks like Mount St. Helens could be the epicenter of another flare-up in the coming months.

Click here for more information on the new proposal.

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