NEW MT St. Helens Permit System

From The MT St Helens Institute Web site. They are now in charge of on line permits.
Mount St. Helens Climbing Update:

Updated: 02 April 2007 - Climbers must purchase permits online for a Mount St. Helens Climbing Permit for the 2007 season. Jack's Restaurant doesn't sell climbing permits. For example, if you wish to climb on a Wednesday, you must purchase an available permit from the on-line vendor by Monday at midnight. You will be able to pick up your permit(s) at Jack's Restaurant and Store on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

From April 1 through October 31 a fee is charged. From April 01 through May 14, the number of permits is unlimited. From May 15 through October 31 the number of permits is limited to 100 per day.


(No Refunds)



I Just Sent Jessica at St Helen's Institute and Forest Service MT ST. Helens a letter.

Your policy of online permits for St helens Stinks to high heaven! Basically if I got skunked by weather for 3 weeks and then finally got a good weather weekend it would cost me 88$ .
A on line charge of $7 above the standard fee ,A two day wait and then no chance for refund is untendable.
Do you not have any sense of the Spring ski season on the mountain? Climbing to Ski on Mount St.Helens has been around long before Computers and your organization,
Please return the spring system as was To Jack's at Cougar
Thank you
Robie Pruden
Tacoma Mountaineers

Please write if you feel as I do , Both JEssica and The Monument headquarters it's as easy as posting here. Also this post needs to be bumped up to Random threads
jessica@mshinstitute.org
[ www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/04contact/contactus.shtml ] Amboy Station.

Well... it was a little chancey to drive all the way to Jack's for a drawing for Summer climbing permits, although I always got my permit.  I have climbed three times and always talked to folks who were climbing without a permit.  Hmmm....   I have also run into a good number of Rangers.  Don't know if anyone gets caught without their permit.

All in all, I don't mind paying for my permits if it supports the cause.  But it would be nice if it was all easier.

Thanks for the heads up on the new system!

Larry ,
first, we are not talking about the summer climbing permits.
We are talking about the spring(traditional skiing/climbing ) season ofApril 1st to May 15th. Permit required but no quota. With the new system there will no longer be permits sold at Jack's.
Now back to the summer season which has a serious flaw in it as well. In all cases of quota systems there is always always a small percentage of permits held for first come daily basis. this exists at The Enchantments ,MT St helens old system ,and even at MT Whitney. Permits that are not picked up are released to the lucky who happen to be there. You might even have been the beneficiary of this from your description. This will no longer exist. Permits not used will be put in the round file. I for one would look forward to the day when I retire that I could drive down to MT Saint helens or Enchantments for a daily first come first served permit. If no permit was available then I would take in a local hike/climb and camp.
All this dissapears in some outsourced electronic void called MT Saint Helen's institute!

I dunno... you do have a point, Robie, about the chance of getting $kunked a few weekends in a row by weeather.   But after May 15 I think it's overall a good thing, cuz at least you won't be driving down there while wondering if you're gonna be in the first 100 for that day.

One thing I don't like about this is that is shows total disregard for people who don't use the internet.   Now as we all know, most people who hike up mountains like MSH do use computers....  but not all do. 

The way Jack's used to work is that at about 5:00pm y'all put your name on a list for 50 permits. Then about 5:30pm, they had a drawing. If your name was drawn, then you could pull out up to 4 permits, which helped small groups. So, a group of eight would only have to draw two winners. Pretty wild.

Yea, that was Summer. Hmmm.. Winter - they should just work it like Mt. Adams. I think they are both in the National Forest aren't they?

Unbelieveable crop of blueberries in August at Climbers Bivouac.