Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Wild Idea - Permit Reservations on Recreation.Gov

In response to this post I started another thread.

The current lottery system for main trail wilderness permits was instituted in 2000, and it replaced a phone reservation system that was in place in 1999. One of the reasons given was to make the system more equitable, since a number of people did not have the time to make repeated phone calls if the line was busy.

Since then a lot has changed in the world of technology. More and more reservations systems are going online, and in 2007, the National Park reservation system was merged with the Reserve USA reservation system under a one-stop system entitled Recreation.Gov. That improved service immensely for people trying to make campsite reservations at Yosemite National Park on the 15th day of the month. What used to be an hour or more of frustration (getting repeatedly kicked out of the system until all the campsites were reserved) is now a much smoother system. In January 2007, I was forced to give up under the old system, but in April 2007 I picked up the sites that I wanted under the new system.

Recreation.Gov is managed by Reserve America, which supports a number of state campsite reservations, including California state parks. Besides Yosemite generating a lot of traffic on the 15th day of the month, California State Parks also generate a lot of traffic on the first day of the month. The State of California also uses Reserve America for booking Hearst Castle Tours in addition to booking campsites. It would be nice if one day Recreation.Gov would be a one-stop source for making wilderness permit reservations. The system certainly has the capacity to handle the demand for Yosemite National Park and Refugio State Beach campsites, so it should be able to handle the [smaller] demand for wilderness permit reservations.

That is my 2c.

Hi I know this family that has no internet connection no credit card and no checking account and has limited use of a phone as they are on limited income I think your ideal would work great for ........ Thanks Doug

I would go further than Fred proposes, for the lottery.

1. The lottery application no longer is mailed in. It is now an online form, and all applications are filed online.

2. Like the present application, the online form has multiple lines, so you can ask for alternate dates (only one date will be given to you, assuming you get a date at all).

3. On each line there are check boxes, drop-down menus, and/or pop-up calendars by which you choose entry date, exit date, size of party, and so on.

4. You include your personal information and credit card information at the bottom of the form.

5. The form is accessible by the public only from February 1 to February 15.

6. All applications go into a database. No matter the date of entry during this 15-day period, all applications are given equal chance to be selected.

7. A computer program randomly selects the first application and sees if there is a match for one of the requested dates. Then on to the next application and through the entire batch, until all the slots are taken.

8. This process commences at 9:00 a.m. on February 16 and is completed by 10:00 a.m.

9. E-mail messages, to winners and losers, are generated automatically and are mailed by 11:00 a.m.

10. The e-mail notifications are followed by written notifications. These are sent out by a private mailing house, which receives the database by noon on February 16 and has all the notifications in the mail on February 17.

11. Nearly everyone receives his written notice by February 21.

12. None of this process requires labor by the present Inyo staff. They celebrate by having a public bonfire of the containers formerly used to hold the thousands of paper applications.

Fred,

It makes too much sense but fiefdoms don't give up power easily.

This all should have been done years ago. All this can be done on a secure website with the use of either internals forms or with a .pdf.

I'm filling out a .pdf application for an Oct Rim to Rim bp in GCNP online which is due June 1st. However, this still has to be faxed, you should be able to e-mail it. Still it a much better system than what the INF uses.

Hi Take a dollar bill out of your pocket look in the upper left hand area and read that real slow, now look on your credit card/ internet/pdf and find that information, as you lose more rights think about what you are giving up for other to serve yourself and ask the basic question are these rights we now put in place interfere with our wants we will then try to change to fit our current needs.

For the tech group the only format that will be accepted is the 1128.s45 vers4.126 nonscripted on Thursday ZULU 2315