I received a cordial invitation from my baby daughter Melinda to climb Mount St. Helens next week. I had read that permits are required, so I called around to find out what's up.

The National Park Service said that the weekends are full now, but I could get a permit for next week on a weekday. They referred me to Active.com. It costs $15 plus a $7 transaction fee per person. I guess Active.com gets most of the $7. They might have to pay a little to Jack's Restaurant, where you pick up your permit.

I got onto Active.com and made a reservation. I've used them before to sign up for rides, races, etc. It's been reasonably painless in the past.

After I signed up, I realized that I had put in the wrong date. I put the 18th instead of the 20th. So I went back to Active.com to change it. But it was impossible to change it. Weak website. So I decided to email their support people. The obvious link I tried said "This page is no longer available." I eventually found another link that worked. So I emailed their support people and was promised a reply within 24 hours. They computer lied. I got no reply.

So in 24 hours, I called them. This was no easy feat, because Active.com is apparently ashamed of their phone number and keep it very well hidden on their web site. The advantage to this is that I didn't have to wait on hold long to talk to a human being. He was very helpful, and after some time he figured out how to change the date on my climbing permit from the 18th to the 20th.

The next day, Saturday, I had received no email confirmation of the change. So I went back to Active.com, checked my permit record, and found that it had indeed been modified. However, the new record was identical to the old. The date had not been changed.

It was Saturday. I was in Oklahoma. Mount St. Helens is in Washington. I planned to climb on Thursday, but my permit said Tuesday. I had no way of knowing whether, if I skipped an Monday appointment in order to climb on Tuesday, my permit would be for Tuesday like the guy said, or Thursday like the computer says. I hate to fly all that distance just to get kicked off of Mount St. Helens, although in my sordid past I have been kicked out of places in most states and several countries.

So I decided to call and find out what the real date on my permit was. I called the National Park Service. The only person who could find out would be gone until Monday, which would be too late for me to get there to climb on Tuesday. So I called Jack's Restaurant, where you're supposed to pick up the permits. They didn't know anything and told me to call the National Park Service. I called Active.com, but could not get past their telephone robot. (And I'm usually pretty good at that.)

So I decided to blow another $44 and make another reservation for climbing permits. But Active.com wouldn't let me, even if I picked another date. I guess you're only allowed to climb that mountain once. I used a different name and different email address and I finally got to make another reservation. So now I have spent $88 to get $30 worth of climbing permits for next Thursday. That gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.