Backpackers hike along a trail in the Three Sisters Wilderness near South Sister and Broken Top.

Hikers and backpackers: Mark your calendars to get your summer wilderness permits.

The U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday unveiled its plans for the 2022 Central Cascades Wilderness Permit system, which governs who can and can’t use certain trailheads on the Deschutes and Willamette national forests in the busy summer months.

The system will look slightly different this year, after the program’s inaugural year was marked by frequent no-shows, or people who reserved permits but didn’t “issue” them.

“The changes are designed to improve the permit system following last summer’s first year of implementation,” Willamette National Forest spokesperson Tammy Robinson wrote in a release announcing the tweaks. “The changes will increase permit opportunities for the public and simplify the permit system.”

Reservable day-use permits will be required at 19 of the 79 trailheads within the Three Sisters, Mount Washington and Mount Jefferson wilderness areas between June 15 and October 15. That’s a slightly later time period than last summer, in an attempt to better align with when trails will be free of snow, the service said.

Permits will also be required for all overnight use within the wilderness areas.

Day-use permits will be released in rolling windows, and will no longer be available before the season begins. According to Forest Service officials, 60% of available permits will be released 10 days in advance, and the remaining 40% will be released two days in advance.

That means, for example, that 27 permits for a July 15 trip from the Broken Top Trailhead will be available for reservation at 7 a.m. on July 5. The remaining 18 permits will be available at 7 a.m. on July 13.

In another major change, overnight use quotas are now based on a group’s date of entry, not the date of entry and each consecutive day of wilderness use, in an attempt to simplify the reservation process, according to permit system details.

Reservations will open for 40% of the system’s overnight permits on April 5. The remaining 60% will be released 7 days in advance of a permit’s entry date.

The amount of available day-use permits has increased at impacted trailheads to account for the number of no-shows last summer, Forest Service officials said.

Last year, they estimated about half of the permits people reserved before the season and about a quarter of the permits reserved a week in advance were never “issued,” meaning those who reserved them may not have actually shown up to use them.

The Forest Service adopted the limited-entry permit system in the Central Oregon Cascades as a way to curb the degradation of trails due to the ever-increasing numbers of trail users. Trail widening, litter and human waste had become noticeable problems, and the Forest Service adopted the permit system to limit the number of users on the trails.

Permits can be reserved online at recreation.gov for a $1 fee for day-use permits and a $6 fee for overnight permits. More details about the system, including which trailheads will require permits and the daily quotas for each, is available online at bendbulletin.us/2022permits.