Originally Posted By: Steve C

I don't think that is quite right. During the lottery processing, your applications get processed in a random order. So the one you "won" got processed first.

Then, the process goes down through your requested dates, processing those on THAT one application in order, first to last. As soon as one is successful, the system looks up all your other applications and cancels (or Revokes???) them. I was not aware that it would look you up in the Alternate Leader slots, and cancel those, too.


After talking to a gal at the Inyo office, it appears that is exactly what happened, however , this cancellation step was not completed until after all lottery dates were filled. After the lottery was completed, the computer went back and threw out all applications that had duplicate names in the alternate leader slots. That left numerous permits available (e.g. 42 permits for August 14) for many dates in the popular months.

The strategy in our group of 5 was to individually submit one application per person as trip leader. We had different email addresses and we paid separately. We named each other as alternates. So far, three of our applications has failed. If all five fail, we won't be too happy because there are already permits available for dates we selected. We assumed that one entry per trip leader was okay, regardless of the names of alternates. We will see if that is true. If all five were thrown out because it was determined a group cannot submit more that one application we will be unhappy because it was not specified in the lottery rules that that strategy was illegal.