Some Eastern Sierra Closures through June

[c0ryh]

31 calls and I got through. Super nice people on the other end. Apparently they can see who's calling even if they're on the other line. The lady saw my name for X amount of times and answered on her lunch to help me out.

She said they release walk up permits on Monday for the following Monday - Sunday. For example, on June 29th, they will release walk up permits for July 6th-12th. It's also a manual process for each trail head so they'll pop up at random times throughout the day.

[notis]

The tough thing is whether to know if they've loaded the permits for the trailhead you want (and they're sold out!), or they haven't done it yet

[gary c.]

I just kept checking the .gov site for the trailheads that I was interested in, Cottonwood, Hilton, or Saddlebag. Yesterday morning it showed 10 available for Saddlebag so even though it was an undesirable weekend I jumped on it. I got my email from the .Gov site and started calling back to back. It took me about 30-40 mins but a very nice lady picked up the phone read me the regs pitch and sent me my permit. After a couple of weeks checking for availability a couple times a day it only took about an hour and a half max.

[John Harper]

I wouldn't consider myself a patient person so we'll see how this continues.

You're stronger than you think, you can do it!

John

[cdevine]

I spoke to a lady named Debra Baker. She was super nice and helpful. I literally called from 7:55am until 8:00am nonstop and finally got thru. Before that it was a no go for me.


Honestly, if you have a reservation paid for, can document all the effort to try and get thru and still can't get thru, I would still have gone on my trip. I'm not a law breaker but I'm also not going to cancel because of that. Maybe if you are in Yosemite or something but I've been backpacking for years and have never seen a ranger or been stopped. Mind you I've always had a permit so you know how murphys law works.

[bobby49]

Lots of us feel very inconvenienced by the way that this has been handled. What should the federal government have done differently?

[John Harper]

Lots of us feel very inconvenienced by the way that this has been handled. What should the federal government have done differently?

Provided competent leadership from the beginning?

We have only ourselves to blame.

John