BEND — After years of discussion, officials at the Deschutes and Willamette national forests have decided to not add extra recreation permit fees when a limited-entry system begins in May for certain Central Cascades trailheads.

In October, the national forests proposed new permit fees for various trailheads in the area: a $3 day use permit and a $5 overnight use permit. The goal of the fees was to help protect the forests from overuse. The national forests had already agreed last year  to implement a limited-entry system starting this spring for the Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington and Three Sisters wilderness areas.

The limited-entry permits will limit the amount of visitors per day and overnight at certain popular trailheads in the region. Most of the region’s trailheads will be limited to fewer than 10 overnight passes per evening.

But the Deschutes and Willamette national forests announced Thursday morning that there would be no fees for the limited-entry permits, according to a U.S. Forest Service press release.

Forest Service officials decided against the new permit fees, mainly because they wanted to prioritize successfully implementing the new limited-entry system, according to Jean Nelson-Dean, spokesperson for the Deschutes National Forest.

“It just got to the point where we were like, let’s focus on implementing this system and worry about other things down the road,” she said.

The national forests received many comments on the proposed permit fees after announcing them in October, Nelson-Dean said. Although some comments were negative, the comments weren’t the main impetus behind not having fees, she said.

“There was a wide range of opinions, (from) we should be charging more, to acceptance, to people against the fee,” Nelson-Dean said. “I would in no way characterize our comments as people only being negative.”

Those who apply for the limited entry permits through the recreation.gov website will still be charged $1 for day use and $6 for overnight use. However, those fees were already in use and go toward administrative costs for the website, not toward the national parks, Nelson-Dean said.

The limited-entry permits will be required for 19 of the area’s 79 trailheads for day use, and at all of the trailheads for night use, starting May 22, and continuing through Sept. 25.

Overcrowding on the Central Cascades trails has become an issue in recent years. Certain trailheads saw visitor increases of 300-500% in the past five years, according to  Forest Service data.

The growing number of visitors resulted in an increase of human and dog waste, widening of trails and loss of certain vegetation, according to the Forest Service.

Popular trails that will have limited-entry permits will include Devils Lake/Wickiup, Green Lake/Soda Creek, Todd Lake, Broken Top and Tam McArthur Rim. For example, the Green Lake/Soda Creek Trail will have a maximum of 14 overnight group and 80 day-use individual permits issued, according to the agency.

The national forests don’t have any plans to try to start the cancelled permit fees in a later year, but if that possibility arises again, the Forest Service will make a public announcement and ask for feedback, Nelson-Dean said.