So by having these pop up at random times during a certain time window, that means people hovering over their devices upwards of 2 hours, waiting for them to show up?
Yeah, something like that. I wasn't given a number, so we don't know how long a time window those random times will come out. The old published numbers were always "at a random time in the next 24 hours". But here, we're dealing with a much shorter time window before the permits are worthless.
The reason they don't want permits to appear immediately is that one party holding the permits could coordinate their cancellation/release time with another party who could then scoop them up. The possibility of that could lead to scalpers making $$ from the transaction.
The staff I spoke to indicated the exact details aren't set in stone yet, so we will have to wait and see. I would think a one-hour time window would eliminate the scalper threat, and enable everyone to have a fair chance at grabbing the permits. Especially for no-shows on overnight hikes, with a 10 AM pickup deadline, those permits would need to be made available over the next hour, so anyone else ready to start a backpack trip could get a permit and change which trailhead they start on.
...Of course that means whatever permit they already had should then be made available online. This could get interesting...
And that leads to a final question: At the deadline after which no more Will Call permits can be made available, will there be a point in time when the Unused Permits number will show up online? Thinking about it, Bruce makes a good point that those last unused permits may very well get scooped up by people ready to drive the distance and pick up their permit in the Night Box. The Unused Permits numbers will definitely decline.
