Inyo wilderness permits

[bobby49]

How does that work when I am passing through town at midnight?

There was a warning posted that carrying the rec.gov confirmation does not constitute having an actual NF wilderness permit.

[Wandering Daisy]

If I cannot manage to get my permit this summer on any of my trips, I will still go, carry my "reservation" and documentation of my efforts to get the permit. I would think any reasonable ranger would accept that. Unless you go in a very popular trailhead (which I am not doing) I doubt I will even run into a ranger. They know how messed up their system is now. But so far, I have managed to get my actual permit and hopefully it will work out for the other ones too.

[bobby49]

The Interagency Visitor Center seems to have a dysfunctional telephone system, and a dysfunctional email reply system. I don't think that they can blame both on some technical glitch. They could blame both on staffing levels, but I've been trying to get through for ten days or so.

Where I had intended to go, there is a wilderness ranger on duty at least half of the times that I've been there, and they always ask to see the permit.

[bobby49]

That was interesting. Inyo sent me my permit. It took them ten days. I expected it to come from the Interagency Visitor Center or the Inyo NF main office in Bishop. Instead, it came from the Mammoth Visitor Center, which shouldn't have anything to do with it. Weird.

[BandedGlossoma]

Given this is a holiday weekend and the Bishop office isn’t staffed on Tuesday I scrapped plans A and B. After a couple of emails and a few days of trying to contact the Wilderness permit number that is given I finally called the Bishop station and got a human on the first call. I talked to John Rosenthal. Helpful and professional and he took care of my permit in no time

[Bradg]

I made a reservation for Cottonwood Lakes Basin on Saturday 6/19 for the following Tuesday 6/22. The permit arrived at 9pm Monday night. I have a permit for this Tuesday. I received the permit yesterday evening. The permit issuer was Debra. She seems to be working overtime! My guess is that they are filling permits pretty close the the entrance date. When I went to the Interagency Station in June, things seemed rather "normal' prepandemic. I just wonder how many people are going to actually do the trips that they booked on Rec.gov.

[Wandering Daisy]

I am going in McGee Creek next Monday and the information sent me said my permit is "issued" out of the Mono Visitor Center in Lee Vining. McGee Creek is the boundary between Mammoth management and Mono Center management. I remember the form made me pick an office where I would "pick up" the permit so I must have put down Lee Vining. Yet, the reservation said Inyo was not having any in-office pick up in 2021. I am going down a few days early so no problem if I can get the permit printed. So does that mean getting the permit "printed" is not "picking up the permit"? A bit confusing. I sent an e-mail - no response yet (4 days). I am going to start calling ALL of the offices.

[bobby49]

You are required to have a paper permit, signed by Inyo and signed by you. How you get that done is up to you.

When Inyo emailed me my permit, it was magically signed by them. I just had to sign the form and carry it.

Yes, I suspect that Inyo is moving some of their resources around. Those permit people are telecommuting.

[Wandering Daisy]

I just called in for my permit. Success! The trick seems to be push "0" no matter what the recording says is wilderness permit information. Both times I did this I got a real person who did my permit. The Lee Vining (Mono) station is open today. They are closed Tue-Wed. I wonder if each office has different days on and days off.

[bobby49]

Pushing "0" got me nowhere on about fifty calls, so I don't think that it is that simple.