Adams & MSH "Volcano" fees: what are we getting?

Spinning this out of the Adams thread for cleanliness.
I generally do not like piled on user fees and often go out of my way to avoid or ignore them.
I've come around slightly on the Shasta and Rainier fees specifically, because these do appear to be directed towards climber centric needs. Rainier it pays for serious climber rangers, people that know the mountain and where when it comes to a rescue, they've proven many times we are getting our money's worth. Shasta, it also pays for full time climber rangers that I've heard vouched for as also being knowledgable decent fellows with good climbing and rescue skills. And also these fees pay for on mountain facilities used specifically by the people paying the fees (Shasta I don't think they don't do as much, just keep Horse Camp and Lake Helen safe and sane, but that's work too).

Adams and St Helens though, as near as I can tell, we got nothing. No real facilities improvements that are specifically for climbers (can't argue road maintenance of South Climb for instance, lots of hikers use too). Lunch Counter could really use solar toilets for instance. And I've never heard specifically of St Helens or Adams having dedicated climbing rangers. Seems like it's just regular old rangers raking up the fees. Anyone know otherwise?

I guess I am in favor of user fees - if you use it, then you can pay for it.  Anywhere that you can drive to needs maintenance.

On both Adams and St. Helens, they are very interested in keeping folks on trails to preserve vegetation.  To me they are big rock piles, to them they are preservation sites.

I have walked up the upper road above Morrrison Creek when it would have been impassable to autos - washouts and many fallen trees.  Trust me, that road doesn't maintain itself.  It is a good idea to call them in the spring to see if the road is open to cars.

Mt. St. Helens. - They built a very nice outhouse at the climbers bivouac to replace the Santi-Cans  I have met several rangers watching out for delerious climbers who were in over their heads and without water. 

This nice ranger was arranging rocks to form a trail at about the 5,000 ft. level.

Although I am not fond of the USFS Fees in general and less fond of other restrictions, I think good work has been done on the Adams South Rte road and TH.

The road was quite rough before the rebuild in the 90's; now I comfortably drive my car instead of a
4 x 4 pickup as I did in the 80's to the South Rte. The CG improvements are nice as well. And I do appreciate the poop bags (I wonder if we all should use that type of system whenever in the mountains). The removal of parking and replacement by cut tree snags at the Horse Camp below Morrison Cr. was probably done as well with the funds and is not a good thing at all (better descriptors withheld here). The new toilets around the Morrison CG and Horse Camp area are nice- the new stuff is so much better than the old pit toilets.

Let's hope that access is not limited as in the Enchantments or St. Helens.

I think the fees are worth it, even if we can't always see what the money is going for. The entire park system and, I assume the part of the forest service not devoted to ravaging the environment is facing huge cutbacks these days thanks to the infinite wisdom of the current administration ($9 billion a month chasing our tails in the mideast when a few hundred million would fix many, if not all, of the problems in the parks and wilderness areas). There was a report on the TV news a few weeks ago talking about how Yosemite has less than one-quarter of the number of interprative rangers they typically have each summer due to the lack of funds. Every little bit helps the park and forest service people take care of the work that needs to be done.

For the corn snow we got in the SW chutes last weekend on Adams... I'd pay double the climbing fee.

I have hiked/skied on the East Coast and arrived in Idaho after a 7 year stint in Olympia. I was extremely surprised at the number of places in the Pacific NW you could go to without spending a dime. Almost every turn-out on the East Coast forests have a pipe to pay just for stepping foot in the park. Idaho is even more lax than the forests in WA and OR. My point being, is that the cost is pretty low compared to the rest of the country.

Additionally, as the USFS funds diminish from timber sales and federal funding, the local districts are forced to find a way to provide the services we all expect. The resource that is replacing the timber sales is recreation and tourism. The USFS would be silly not to tap that resource to help pay for the infrastructure that we need to access and use these great mountains. Also, it's not so easy to correlate the fee you pay directly to what you "get" in return. The fee's might be put in a reserve fund to tap when usage warrants additional services.

Disclaimer: I'm not a USFS emloyee.

I'm worried that people are getting complacent about the fees, and in particular the piling on nature of effectively being charged twice for the same thing. You have to pay attention to how the money is being spent, and whether the collection of fees in that circumstance is even provisioned by the existing laws. Also, how much what you're spending is really just offsetting what would have come from a general fund, such that the money is really paying for "flagwaving" kinds of things, effectively, if you compare it to how money was spend on forests and recreation 20 years ago.
South Climb Trail and restrooms: you have already paid for that, with the Forest Pass. The updated REA from 2005 makes a point of stating that you cannot be charged for access alone; there must be facilities or services in place from a quite defined list (which will be interesting to see how that shakes out this summer; there are still a lot of USFS trailheads that don't meet the requirements yet have a Forest Pass sign up).
A climbing fee potentially falls under the 'special recreation fee' provision of the new REA. But on Adams and St Helens just how 'special' is it? It's just an extended hike by the trade routes, as is evidenced by the lack of appropriate 'climbing' equipment on some people one sees on the summit on certain occasions.
Also: this is backburner now because the whole mountain is closed, but remember that on St Helens the fee structure is set up such that there's this potential window where anyone riding a snowmobile summits for free, whereas anyone human powered pays the 15 bucks. That just further points out the absurdity for me.