"With all due respect. Regarding "transparency"... what would that accomplish? "
i do have to laugh at myself a little and admit, it would accomplish nothing.. i'm a numbers nerd, just wishing purely out of curiosity to hear people say "the Park corrected my timestamp from 10:08 to 10:01" or whatever... //i'm one of those nerds who will pore over useless data. I spent an hour looking at the Whitney permit results charts, they really go to town with all the different dates and results numbers..
PAY.GOV- i honestly like Glacier's current system especially because you can fill it all out online, and it is very well thought out with alternative dates etc. The only problem is obviously "first come first serve" is not good. Some sort of application period and then process apps by lottery would be great...
If Glacier goes to a lottery, the LoTTery Application Periods and Results are an issue that may be decided by the Park, but i would love it if the public had input... the "wait and see" issue is a tough one... Seems like there is no easy way around some people finding out while others keep waiting. Alternative would be for Park to hold All applications until a certain date and then release all permits at once... not sure everyone wants to wait like that... When i describe how Yosemite does it you will understand better why their system would not work for Glacier... i'll put that last with a notation if you want to skip ahead.
re:Permits Permits Permits... i've gotten them in several places and have done the research in others.
In Short- no, wait, that's impossible... this will run on... I spend so much time reading the permit pages, i can't help myself...
first off there are Two different things going on in the Grand Canyon- Phantom Ranch at the bottom which has a wacky lottery system for everything way in advance, and then the permits for the Park BC sites and trails... To confuse things further, they have some BC "campgrounds" and some trails that are "camp anywhere you like" areas
(this typically means try to find a site that has been previously used, or go 100yds from trail, there are a few variables but essentially find whatever spot looks good)...
SO- while Phantom Ranch (private within the Park) is reserved all at once way in advance with a lottery, the rest of the Wilderness Permit areas in GC are a ratio of reserved and walk up.. i can not say for certain why (i believe it is related to the Wilderness Act) but so far every National Park and National Forest backpacking permit i have checked into has 60% permits are reservable, 40% are walk up EXCEPT Mt Whitney permits which are given out in their own special lottery (unclaimed/cancelled dates become available for walk ups, but they are fairly few).
Where Grand Canyon burned people was their 3 weeks out rule.. (good news on that below)
like PeteE says..
what do people do when they try to plan months in advance??
I literally am those people this summer...we are totally burned, it sucks. We didn't even consider backcountry, just went with Rim campground reservations. from what i understand getting a walk up is not too tough although hard for the best areas, but most of us need to plan big trips like this months in advance and you cant get plane and sleeping reservations that close in high season... 3 weeks in advance is a burn.
After all that i look it up and they have switched to an "earliest consideration" system similar to yosemite, it now is 4 months in advance, they have certain windows to apply during for certain trip dates... it functions similar to Yosemite, which will be better explained in a bit...
Canyonlands had a system similar to Grand Canyon that was not far in advance as well, now is 4 months in advance..seems like everyone is changing their system. They do also have the 60/40 reserved/walk up as well... looks like enough people complained that the "3 weeks in advance" was ludicrous, so hard to make plans like that.
The biggest problem i have had almost everywhere including Glacier- we had to reserve campsites at fish creek in january for before and after our BC trip and then hope and pray we got BC permits for the 2 nights we did not have a site reserved (got lucky hooray)...
There are some Forest areas with no lottery where both front country campsites and the back country permits are available at the same time but not many. Seems most campsites are 6 months in advance, so by the time you have a permit, the front country sites are all gone. I don't expect the Parks to change that, it is not likely they would overhaul the entire system for backpackers but...I had mentioned earlier, one solution in Yosemite where So Many people are backpacking, they set up "backpacker campgrounds" dirt lots inside larger campgrounds where persons with permits can spend 1 night before and after a trip for $5 per. Would be nice to see that in more Parks, but not all have the space for it.
YOSEMITE -background because theirs is probably the busiest system, it does make for an interesting one... first off you get a permit for a trailhead rather than a campsite and other than a very few areas you camp "anywhere you like" (see
above). Trailheads have entry quotas, most are 40 entries per day, so 25 reservations and 15 walk ups.. What gets interesting is your permit can be for any number of days (not sure what the limit is) in the woods on your permit .. so if many people enter same trailhead day after day an area can get crowded, but for the most part, people keep moving so that is not an issue... But you can see how that would not work in Glacier...
60% of daily quota is reservable in advance, 40% for walk ups. You can get a walk up only 24hrs or less before your trip. As mentioned, if you need a campsite you can use the "backpackers campgrounds" of which there are a few scattered across the park, some closer to trailheads than others.. You can park near a trailhead, and Yosemite has very few restrictions on parking (some are being implemented in the crowded areas).. you can leave your car on Tioga Road for a month with no worries. I'll throw in Yosemite has reserved and walk in front country campgrounds. The reservations are recreation.gov, first come first serve online 6 months in advance gone in under a minute every day for high season!! Recreation.gov seems to have pretty good servers as their systems are handling thousands and thousands of campsite reservations daily this time of year, but it's gotten so crowded that i really hope they consider daily lotteries as well.. when "first come" is determined by servers competing for bandwidth, all fairness goes out the window.
Yosemite Lottery (Grand Canyon very similar)
FAX. Grand Canyon also does FAX. Many of these lotteries operate in the same fashion.. get a pdf online similar to Glacier's, but you have to print it out and FAX it in, no email.. big pain in the neck, but you do have a full day to do it in...for Yosemite they go with 168 days in advance- so there is a period of 24 hrs 169 days in advance where you submit the application. They say "submit this day we process following day". 168 days in advance they randomly pull the applications received day before until they have gone through all of them, and you hear back day after processing. If none of your choices are available, you get nothing, they will not pick for you like Glacier will. More CATCHes that makes this particular system not work for Glacier- for one, staffing may be an issue, yosemite has a lot of staff... and for another...dates.. You are only able to apply for a certain date.. you can list alternative trailheads, but they will only process permits for the 168 days or less in advance they are at each day...by limiting applications to only a specific date, they have only so many to go through each day... Now if you are at less than 169 days out you can check their "full trailheads" page and see what dates are still open and apply for them, but the popular trailheads are full. Again, all of this works well because people are competing for trailhead entries, and can then make their own campsite where ever, while in Glacier we all need to use the same campsites.
Glacier saves a lot of reprocessing time by moving dates around for you, which is ultimately better for them than it is for you.. In Yosemite if you don't get a permit today, you try again tmrw or whatever day works for you until you get one... Example, last year that meant i submitted apps three times until i got the trip i wanted... so the Rangers had to process me three times instead of once, a lot more work when you consider the numbers. It also works out that Glacier is reserving for between 3 and 6 months in advance to cope with their seasonal fluctuations. All these date complications make the 6 months in advance hear back in a day or two system tough to apply to Glacier// ultimately i see the current system as about as good as it gets, just change it to a week or two application period and process by a lottery system.
The really nice thing is there is always Something available for walk up.. ive been pretty impressed with what was still available on the walk up board when i go to pick up my permits, and a walk up trip to a "less popular" area was one of our favorites... I suspect this applies Everywhere.
You can also usually call the Rangers at most Parks and Forests to arrange a permit reservation, but only for what is left after they process lotteries each day. This is a very shaky way to get a permit, but for certain less popular areas it works.
Mt. Whitney lottery is for hikes during may-oct...they have us fill out online, we have one month window to apply around feb 15-march 15. It is only one trail, select day hike or overnight, apply for i think it is 10 maybe more alternatives. Increase your chances by applying for both day (100 per day) and overnight (60 per day) hikes for same dates, apply for weekdays, etc... 5 weeks after application window closes they inform everyone at once, in April well before hiking season starts (may-oct), but most of the the front country sites have already been reserved depending on when your climb is..frustrating, especially since you need to stay at the the mtn to acclimate , but there are some walk up sites and other alternatives. After lottery results are released, Unclaimed dates go on sale, lottery winners have another month to confirm and pay for their permits. After that period is over the rest of the leftovers go on sale .... not a bad system but when you only have one trail with "camp anywhere you like" it is easy...
Possibly some combination of those two lotteries would work well for Glacier..
If you got this far, you would probably enjoy looking over the backcountry permit sections of National Park websites, every Park is a little different and even within the Parks there are areas with different complications. Some Parks it is as simple as parking your car and leaving a note on it.....
Well that was way too much.. hope someone finds parts of it interesting... this is what happens when you study parks for years, and have a job that has you on call waiting in case someone needs you... /// write essays on the internet all night...