2018 Backcountry Permit Buzz

[Sue Z]

Our approved route is the Belly River area to Waterton - in @ Chief Mtn and out at Goat Haunt -in late July.

Nice trip! I did that route with my fam 3 years ago. What a delight!

[Syrio]

Removed because of comment below, want to avoid confusion.

[danwadas55]

Syrio, that message has been posted since the day they sent the email. They posted it a little while after the email went out. I would expect a new one.

[FlyFishYellowstone]

Good afternoon all! I registered just to give an update as I have watched this forum in the past to get the feel of when I might hear on reservations. Last year, I had a timestamp of 10:00:59 and it took 2 to 3 weeks to hear about my reservation. This year, I had the same troubles as many on here. I was kicked out twice before finally getting my submittal in at 10:01:49. I have yet to hear anything, but will update everyone once I do.

[Syrio]

Syrio, that message has been posted since the day they sent the email. They posted it a little while after the email went out. I would expect a new one.

Ah, alright. I removed my comment to avoid any confusion.

[sbosecker]

From the Glacier National Park Backcountry Web Page:

Advance Reservation Update - 3/22/18
Pay.gov completed their investigation of the website crash on Monday and has provided the Park with a list of affected users based on their analysis of user account submission attempts taken from website log entries. Backcountry staff merged that list with actual submissions data collected on March 15 and rearranged it by time stamp. This new list is being used to process advance reservations.

Due to the delays associated with the Pay.gov system failure and the extremely high number of applications received, backcountry staff cannot provide individual applicants with the status of their applications. Successful applicants will receive an email with either a backcountry permit itinerary or a rejection notice once their application is processed.

We are sorry for any distress this may have caused and appreciate your patience as we begin the real work of processing advance reservation applications.

As Carl said so many years ago...

Scott

[thorn726]

while this may not be great news for me, i'm glad they figured out a practical solution for this year, THANKS for the post!! I'll imagine they are already considering a lottery for the future.

[PeteE]

while this may not be great news for me, i'm glad they figured out a practical solution for this year, THANKS for the post!! I'll imagine they are already considering a lottery for the future.

What they're doing is no "solution" but I agree on changing back to a simple lottery system.

We all live in "Hope" don't we?

pete

[paul]

while this may not be great news for me, i'm glad they figured out a practical solution for this year, THANKS for the post!! I'll imagine they are already considering a lottery for the future.

I was worried they were going to mess this up even worse than it was already. Before this, I knew basically where I stood. Now, I have no idea. I think it's probably worse for me now.

[thorn726]

same here, i have a 10:02:01 timestamp so i think this probably made things worse for me, some of those folks who got locked out by the crash are probably ahead of me now. By "solution" i mean they do appear to at least have made things as fair as possible in spite of the crash // that said, pay.gov was wildly unprepared for the increase in submissions, and even the data from last year (1600 apps first day) should have been more than enough to say "we need a lottery system" ./

[mfster]

Pay.gov completed their investigation of the website crash on Monday and has provided the Park with a list of affected users based on their analysis of user account submission attempts taken from website log entries.

I wonder how this actually works though and how accurate it is....

Even though I hit submit a couple of seconds after 10:00 I'm not feeling too hopeful about this tbh!

[Syrio]

I wonder if its those actually attempting to click submit only or is it anyone trying to access? Mine failed at various stages various times. I'm not sure I even made it to submit before my actual submission went through. Based on the info they have access to this does seem like the most fair solution they've got other than having everyone resubmit.

[joybird]

Yeah, this does make it more confusing. I had pre-loaded the last page of the application and hit "continue" a second or two after 10:00...and it crashed. It is unclear to me from their message whether they have any way to know that I hit the button then and timestamp it accordingly, or whether they will use one of my subsequent attempts...

What I don't understand is why they are surprised by any of this. The same kind of thing happened last year too...and many of us complained to the BC office both at the time and in person while in Glacier that the system was less fair than the old lottery system. Ah well. We'll see what next year brings...

Good luck all!

[joshillian]

In all honesty, all of this seems tremendously anachronistic. Why are all advanced reservations for the upcoming season opened for reservation the same day? And why is park staff intervention required for each itinerary?

I'd suggest three major improvements, none of which would tremendously difficult to automate.

1) Completely automate the reservation process. The campgrounds and number of spots open to advanced reservation per date are known quantities. I don't see why any of this currently requires human staff to eyeball each itinerary. Certainly, you can add validation criteria that would enforce the 16 mile max mileage limit between backcountry sites and similar criteria. From a programming perspective, these are not hard problems.
2) Open up reservations on a rolling window - i.e. 6 months or whatever - from the first night of the planned trip.
3) Allow reservations to be entered prior to the rolling window and then a random process determines winners/losers for that date range once the window's opening is reached.

If I knew it'd be used and meet their needs I'd gladly work on something like this without a doubt.

[sbosecker]

Pay.gov completed their investigation of the website crash on Monday and has provided the Park with a list of affected users based on their analysis of user account submission attempts taken from website log entries. Backcountry staff merged that list with actual submissions data collected on March 15 and rearranged it by time stamp. This new list is being used to process advance reservations.

I made my submission to move to the "Pay" page within 5 seconds after 10:00 am and the system crashed.

I read - prior to posting the above from Glacier NP's web site - that folks that had time stamps much later than that have gotten an itinerary.

I didn't say it at the time because I thought my clip from Caddyshack would say it all. They have said something absurd and some of us - like Carl - believe it.

If anyone thinks there's going to be an "equitable" solution (i.e. an accurate list) or a transparent explanation as to how said list was generated (remember these are the folks that fumbled the ball in the first place) they are probably delusional.

I am happy for the folks that got through but that doesn't change the fact that many of us did exactly what we were supposed to do and got a pie in the face. To pretend that pay.gov's wiping a bit of pie away from our eyes makes it all better is hogwash.

If an "equitable solution" was truly being desired by Glacier NP, they would have Pay.gov install enough horsepower to handle the load and the whole process would be repeated after that was acomplished.

Instead we get this.

I sent an email on the 16th to Glacier NP respectfully expressing my concerns shortly after the pay.gov plan to attempt to reconstitute the timestamps was published. I got a terse response from Teagan that "Your original email has been received by our Superintendent's Office and the Backcountry Office." My original email on the 15th was to inform them of the problem. My second email, stiff-armed by Teagan - was to point out potential problems with the "solution".

Nice. The tone had been set at that point.

Scott