Possible new pay parking policy at Mt. Baker

the party will be off the hook and we may have a snowshoe poop flinging event and a snowshoers slalom run, followed by an out traverse luge 'dodge the skinners' going up on the down track event.
No bognar necessary but there could be the gnar.

I think people are missing the Grand Irony of Duncan's options to paying his User Tax.

Option 1.  Hitch-hike up from White Salmon[/b]

Illegal, unsafe, and would clog the road to the upper lodge which would impede the flow of cash, er, customers to the area.

Option 2.  Park on the Highway and walk up

Unsafe     The first individual clipped by a passing Tiny-House shitter vent pipe will make headlines; the wrong kind.

...could this be the tip of the iceberg of a brewing battle?

It appears that the greed of the organizations operating ski area's on public lands is getting the best of them.  More and more, employees of the operators  are acting like they completely own the property and are trying to push the boundaries of their authority on public lands.  I found this evident by the attitudes, language and attempted intimidation that I've personally seen and have also heard about from others. This is happening at Baker, Snoqualmie and definitely Stevens under the new ownership! 

Is it time for NPS and USFS to get involved in the discussion and make sure that public lands are for the benefit of all, and that operators of ski areas on public lands have the privilege of earning a return on public land by providing a service?  It's getting to the point where it's miserable for the paying user (lift ticket resort skier) as well as the public land user (BC skier, snowshoer, trekker, etc).

Yes, the owners do put money into operating the resorts (hmmm - seems more like $ going into marketing to generate more income than $ going into improvements that were promised but isn't happening) , but there is a lot of public money going into the area in order to make the resort viable,  plowing, traffic control, public road maintenance, etc.

Charging on the way out would be a nightmare. "Sorry, we all forgot our wallets"

I overheard a conversation just like this one a few years ago. I think this attitude has trickled down the ladder as my last few experiences with ski patrol leaving the upper lot were not Representative of good customer relations. They feel like they own the place....

My last uninitiated interaction with a baker ski patroller on a snowmobile as we were skinning up the cat track. "Its going to be a busy day, we won't come rescue you if you get in trouble".

Given how a few threads here in the last few years have shown how ski tourers up there are getting on each others' nerves due to various gong show type fun, it's not super shocking to hear of that sort of comment from the patrollers.