It is pretty simple: There ARE NO refunds. Whether you cancel or not.
It is certainly helpful to the hiking community to cancel, so others can get the permit and plan for the hike.
But understand... if you were allowed to cancel and get a refund, then we would have a huge over-application issue -- lots and lots of people entering lots of applications at $6 a pop, Then they might possibly snag more than one successful date to hike. And then they would cancel all but one of their dates.
In the end, the only winners are the people at recreation.gov, who get to keep all those $6 application fees. As for the hiking community, we have the same number of hikers actually hiking.
Hmmmm..... The River lotteries allow cancellations and refunds (actually give you a chance to cancel the reservation BEFORE they charge the fee for the permit), except for the $6 application. THAT is likely a big reason there is a 20% success rate.
The Whitney lottery had more of a 50% success rate in the past -- but that was where people could ask for lots and lots of dates on a single application.
