I have been in contact with Inyo National Forest staff, and they have passed along some ideas for changes to the lottery next February. There are some pretty big changes planned, and Inyo staff would like to see some discussion on the proposed ideas.

Here are the ideas presented:
  • Allow people to cancel or withdraw a lottery application before March 16.
  • Direct people to log onto their account after the lottery to get lottery results. The email notification didn't work for many people last year.
  • Try publishing "Most requested dates" during the lottery application phase, like Yosemite is doing for Half Dome.
  • Possibly utilize the "accept or decline your trip date", with the non-refundable $15 per person fee payment made when you accept.
The chance to decline a trip before being charged should help:
  • allow people the freedom of requesting a wide range of dates, as in the paper lottery, without financial hardship.
  • unwanted dates will be released as early as possible, making them available for others to reserve.
  • ensure more groups get at least one trip, so those willing to try for multiple trips regardless of the cost (last year's lottery) will not have an advantage.
The "accept or decline" process will be similar to that used by the river lotteries run on the same Recreation.gov website. Those winning one or more slots in the lottery will need to log on and accept or decline their trip:
  • An acceptance period (Post lottery to April 15) would free up many unused dates earlier than the No Show process. The No Show system will remain to release unused permits for walk in requests.
  • Making the reservation fee payable when a date is accepted would even the playing field for groups who cannot afford to "win a reservation at any cost".
  • Because this strategy is likely to significantly increase the number of applications, Inyo would also apply a one trip per leader limit in the lottery to help increase the number of groups to get at least one trip. We would not limit access for the number of trips per year, just the lottery reservations. Frequent hikers would NOT be limited in how many times they got walk in permits or reservations made after the lottery.
  • Folks that want to apply for a wide range of dates could use multiple applications; the pay when you accept a date would make the cost more reasonable; the one trip per leader limit would avoid having multiple reservations that block other groups from getting trips.