Now that the sun has returned to Southwest Washington, locals can shift their attention from staying dry to getting out to the mountains. But anyone looking to climb Mount St. Helens is going to have to wait a while longer.
Permits to climb to the volcano’s 8,363-foot summit are sold out until at least Sept. 27, as are the first two weekends in October — the final month of the season.
Ray Yurkewycz, executive director of the Mount St. Helens Institute, the nonprofit that facilitates permit sales, said in the last few years about 10,000 the season’s 39,000 permits are sold on the first day they’re available, with the majority of those sales completed in the first 45 minutes.
“People are just poised and waiting to click the link,” he said. “It’s like a mad rush at a department store on Black Friday.”
The U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the volcano, releases a set number of permits per year. Those are sold by the Mount St. Helens Institute through an online vendor.
The online permitting system began in 2006, about a year and a half after the volcano most recently erupted.
A limit of 500 permits per day are available between April 1 and May 14 — when the landscape will be protected by snowpack — down to 100 per day from May 15 to Oct. 31. Permits go on sale online the first Monday of February for the May 1 to Oct. 31 climbing season.
While the entire season typically doesn’t sell out, prime days get snatched up fast. June, July and August weekends typically sell out first, followed closely by the July and August weekdays. The rest of the summer days fill up from there.
In 2011, the Mount St. Helens Institute sold about 13,800 climbing permits; last year they sold a little more than 20,000.
“The demand has been steadily increasing,” Yurkewycz said. “It wasn’t until the past five years that one hundred a day was an issue.”
He said the institute fields calls from people hoping there are extra passes, frustrated that they weren’t able to get one, or that there is even a permit system in place at all — among other things.
Tedd Huffman, manager of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, said limiting permits preserves the experience for climbers by reducing crowding on the trail. It also helps manage wear and tear on the climbing route. For employees and volunteers, the limit allows them to have more direct contact with climbers and to better manage human waste issues — which can be a problem in mountain environments.
Huffman also said the $22 climbers spend on a permit is for resource protection, education and visitor safety on the national monument.
Yurkewycz said the institute is considering ways to tweak the permit sales system in a way that makes ensures the most popular climbing days are not sold so quickly. But those changes won’t happen for a while.
For now, the website Purmit.com serves as a secondary market for climbing permits where people can request or sell them. Unlike tickets to a concert or sporting event, Yurkewycz said sellers aren’t allowed to sell them at inflated prices.
“I think our language is pretty firm, you can’t sell them for more than the face value,” he said. “I think also the hiking community monitors that pretty closely.”
