Early September Wilderness Permits

[JWreno]

I haven't tried for a wilderness permit since 2019. We plan on taken a 7 night trip later August or early September. I was wondering if the September quotas are less likely to fill up verses August.

I will start trying for permits starting about February 18th for August or September dates at 7AM for some of the popular trailheads between the Bishop and Lone Pine area. I want to bring a brother along for a permit request totaling 4 people.

[c9h13no3]

Depends more on the trailhead than when you choose to go. North Fork of Big Pine Creek will almost always fill instantly, while I doubt you’d ever have competition for going up George Creek.

[stevet]

The permitting process is a nuisance, but easy enough to get through. Most important is to have your dates picked and to be on the recreation.gov reservation site the minute it opens 6 months prior. I'll use me as the example.

I will travel from Albany, NY to somewhere close to my trailhead on Thurs. Aug 24th and start hiking the 25th. So when the rec.gov site opens on Sat. Feb 25th I will be "stationed" at my PC at 10am EST and able to grab my permit within the first 30 seconds. My return home travel day is Labor Day 9/4 so although I'll intent to finish on Sun. the 3rd I'll show my exit as the 4th just in case. With these 2 points nailed down I fill out the rest of the permit with various camp areas ("other" works quite well) then I pay and exit. I'll edit the permit later with more correct/likely campsites.

And, I have planned a "dry run" permit application one week prior on Feb. 18th. This way I refamiliarize myself with the rec.gov site and can go faster when I actually book the permit.

You'll find that for popular trailheads, even through September, that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday starts will book out in about 15 minutes and the other days within a couple hours. This isn't the end of the world because "walkup" permits get released 2 weeks prior so you do get another shot, again though, plan on them booking out within 15 minutes. And, a few people, when their plans changes will actually cancel. So if you miss the Feb window keep an eye on the site beginning about 6 weeks out from your trip.

Sounds like a lot but it is less stressful than it sounds. 7am PST is when the permit app opens. As long as you are at the ready at 7am you'll with 99.999% certainty get the permit you want.

[narc1370]

For me,, in gauging the 7am opening on my Mac, I’ve learned it’s about 15 seconds off, and if you refresh your browser, I waste valuable seconds having to redo my calendar, # of people, etc. I’ve lost out on permits before because of this!

thru trial and error, I know if I’m trying to pull from a popular trailhead, I factor in those extra 15 seconds and only one other time did I miss out because the server crashed. Otherwise, I don’t even worry about it anymore (although my trips always begin on a Tuesday or Wednesday, which may have something to do with my success as well).

[JWreno]

When you say 15 seconds of do you mean you should attempt to reserve at 7:00:15AM or 6:59:45AM?

[JWreno]

I am flexible on my dates but am requesting a Cottonwood pass entry for 4 people. I am going to start requests on August 26th and keep trying the following days until I succeed.

I have an older brother who wants to joins us. He is in great shape but new to backpacking. He walks 18 holes pulling his golf clubs most days of the week for most of the year when the ground isn't snow covered. He also does some day hiking.

We are planning to go North up the PCT and exit at South Lake. I have plenty of extra gear so he would just borrow some of our stuff this year. He can buy his own stuff after that if he decides to continue to backpack with us. I am thinking about doing a day trip down the middle fork of the Kings river to see the Devils Washbowl. We would park some of our gear just south of the Palisade Creek - Kings river junction and do an out and back to the Devils Washbowl before returning to our gear and continuing north on the PCT to the Dusy Basin intersection.

He wants to section hike the PCT with us but I told him to do this 9 day trip to see if he really likes backpacking. If he does well he is welcome to continue to hike with us.

My wife and I intend to section hike all the PCT over at total of 5 section hikes. We would do South Lake to north of Lassen after we retire end of July 2024. The follow two March-Aprils we would do half of the 750 from Mexico to Cottonwood pass. Summer 2025 and 2026 we would do from just north of Lassen to Washington and then Washington to Canada finishing August 2026.

Section hiking mostly over a 3 year period appeals more to us than a full time half year effort. We can go at a comfortable pace, enjoy the moments and hike when conditions are most comfortable for the area we are in. We will also be able to participate in other activities over the 3 years when not on the trail.

My wife and I have been backpacking together since 1993 and have done the JMT 3 times together and several other 7-10 day trips. I enjoy some off trail routes and wild passes but my wife and son prefer to stay on trails. I have added 2-3 day off trail routes to 4 of our trips over the years. Everyone stayed safe but they did get nervous a few times.

[paul]

The dry run that Steve T. Mentions is a essential. September should be easier than August, but if you start trying 6months ahead of your earliest date then you can just keep trying until you get something. A couple other tips that may have been mentioned: have your list of campsites ready, and create it based on the drop down list of locations on the website. That speeds up filling it out. Playing around on that website way ahead of time pays off when you have to move fast for the actual reservation. Also, look at the map and consider whether there are any alternate entry points that you might use that are less popular.
And remember that you can cancel and it only costs you the reservation fee, not the permit fee.

[TurboHike]

On Feb. 13th I reserved a permit for Aug. 13th, Cottonwood Lakes trailhead. Party of 2. In a separate browser, I opened the time.gov website, which shows the official clock of dot gov websites. It said my computer clock was 1.3 seconds slow. whatever. When the time.gov clock showed 7 am, I waited about half a second, refreshed my browser, entered the information requested, and successfully reserved the permit. Very easy. I then had 15 minutes to input campsites. I then added it my cart, which gave a new 15 minutes for entering payment information. Again, all very easy.

[Wandering Daisy]

You can put in what is fast and easy, even same location for many nights to quickly get into the system and then when you get the permit, revise it with the actual locations of each night. I often do this simply because I often change my route when the time comes near anyway, due to weather or snow, or wildfires.

[JWreno]

The Trail pass is has no quota. but I am not sure if a Trail Pass permit then going north on PCT is acceptable. It only adds a few miles to the trip. We have gone in at Cottonwood pass 2008, 2009 and 2011 with out any problems and made reservations for 2, 5 and 3 people only two weeks in advance.