Wilderness Permits 2023

[zozeppelin]

Interesting article Scott, those are some staggering numbers, thanks for sharing. I’ve read some strong opinions on the contractor / money flow, such as in the backcountry permit system change proposal comments, but I personally don’t have a strong opinion either way.

From a $ standpoint, beyond the contract for service, I am estimating ~3500 entry tickets per day, at $2 per ticket and assuming 70 days in the season, that is $490,000.

[paul]

I wonder if you have an existing permit and you try to modify it if you notice a more preferable site becomes available or if you add another night. Will the application mess up what already have? I want to add another night at the end of the permit if it becomes available between now and when I pick up my permit. But I'm concerned that when I hit modify, it might open up the sites that I have to other reservations. Theoretically this should work but who knows what it will do.

Well, I'm answering my own question. Last night a friend notified me that the site I was looking for opened up for the day I needed it. So I quickly got online and modified my permit to added it on the last night. I had no problems.

[liketohike]

That's great news Paul!
And thanks for the update- it's good to know about the permit modification option.

[teapot57]

Well, I'm answering my own question. Last night a friend notified me that the site I was looking for opened up for the day I needed it. So I quickly got online and modified my permit to added it on the last night. I had no problems.

[paul]

Well, I'm answering my own question. Last night a friend notified me that the site I was looking for opened up for the day I needed it. So I quickly got online and modified my permit to added it on the last night. I had no problems.

Thanks for the great tip Teapot, now I'm all set for my trip.

[teapot57]

So glad it all worked out for you!

[sbosecker]

Well, I'm answering my own question. Last night a friend notified me that the site I was looking for opened up for the day I needed it. So I quickly got online and modified my permit to added it on the last night. I had no problems.

Paul,

Thank you for that report... I just went to the "modify" section of my itinerary and it looks reasonably intuitive... any hicups for you when you made the change?

Best regards,

Scott

[paul]

Well, I'm answering my own question. Last night a friend notified me that the site I was looking for opened up for the day I needed it. So I quickly got online and modified my permit to added it on the last night. I had no problems.

Paul,

Thank you for that report... I just went to the "modify" section of my itinerary and it looks reasonably intuitive... any hicups for you when you made the change?

Best regards,

Scott

No hicups for me at all, Scott. Of course, I was just adding an extra day to the existing permit. It might be a different if you are trying to replace a camp in your current itinerary. Although, think the workflow should be pretty simple just select a different site for the day in question.

[zozeppelin]

Looks like some sites are open according to the status page, and advanced reservations are showing up in rec.gov:
FLA, MCD, SNY
COS,ELH,GAB (curious ELH but not ELF)
BOW, KIN, QUA
ATL, REF, REH

I'm curious as to how the walkup availability will be shown, as I'm assuming the old server page won't be available. The majority of sites that don't have reservation availability show 'W' for walkin, although clearly some of those aren't available for walkin (STO, BOU, etc). There are a couple exceptions, such as BRO, HOL, LQU showing '0' until their standard opening date. So clearly some suspicious values so I'm not putting too much stock in them. The one thing I did notice is that there are only 3 parameters: total, remaining, show walkup. The total matches the total available for advanced reservation. The available is the available advanced reservation, up to the total value. And show walkup determines whether the 'W' is displayed. I haven't found one where there is available and show walkin = true, but have found where there is 0 available and show walkin = false which results in the '0' showing up.

It is a bit too early to tell, but it appears that walkin will have the 'W" if there is indeed walkin available, but it won't be reservable on rec.gov, but also won't display how many sites are available for walkup.

[liketohike]

https://www.nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/ ... eports.htm

[teapot57]

COS,ELH,GAB (curious ELH but not ELF)

Someone on the Glacier Hiking and Backpacking FB group posted that they camped at GLF and ELF last week, and 2 of the campsites at ELF were still snowed in. That probably explains why ELF is still in winter status.

[liketohike]

COS,ELH,GAB (curious ELH but not ELF)

Someone on the Glacier Hiking and Backpacking FB group posted that they camped at GLF and ELF last week, and 2 of the campsites at ELF were still snowed in. That probably explains why ELF is still in winter status.

That makes sense.