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Daily Lottery like Half Dome?
#52567 01/29/18 05:00 PM
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Who can we talk to about starting a petition to get a daily lottery system for Whitney like the one for Half Dome? Making the annual lottery gets harder every year with more people trying. If you want to go on short notice, you have to drive up (or down or over, or fly in) the day before and hope you can get a permit for the next day.

Meanwhile, on the same recreation.gov system, Half Dome has a daily lottery that is for two days before your hike date. Say you want to hike on Wednesday - you enter the lottery by 1400 PT on Monday, and you will know at 0001 Tuesday if you have a permit for Wednesday and can thus make plans accordingly. This is way more convenient for people that don't live right next door to these hikes. I was able to do Half Dome this year in October the last week before the cables were taken down because of the daily lottery. Tried first for Wednesday, didn't get one, tried for Thursday and got it.

Re: Daily Lottery like Half Dome?
over1812 #52572 01/30/18 11:17 PM
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Yosemite permits about 400 hikers per day to access Half Dome, Mt Whitney Main Trail is 100 day hikers, 60 overnighters. So I don't think there is as much "wiggle room" to create a daily lottery that would amount to much.

Additionally, most sea-level dwellers can climb Half Dome successfully without any acclimatization required. With Mt Whitney, on the other hand, it's prudent to spend several nights at 8k or 10k elevation to get better adjusted to the altitude. Half Dome's summit is only 8800', just a little higher than the Whitney trail head.

In a similar manner, the walk-in permit system for Whitney Permits gives people the chance that a daily lottery for Half Dome does. There are no walk-ins available for Half Dome -- no-shows are never made available to others. On Whitney, on the other hand, people serious about climbing who didn't get a lottery slot can usually get a permit, especially if they go mid-week. Such a person really needs to be staying at altitude in the area, so it is just a matter of driving to the Visitor Center and getting in line at the right time.

I'll put in my opinion here on the Half Dome permits: The primary reason for the permits is to avoid crowding on the cables. They could open it up to many more if they would give out permits for "Before 10 AM" and "After 3 PM" on the cables. With such permits, those people would be using the cables out of the peak times. Unfortunately, Yosemite managers aren't interested in trying anything a little imaginative.

Re: Daily Lottery like Half Dome?
Steve C #52577 02/02/18 10:26 AM
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Sounds like an interesting idea! Don't you think opening early permits would encourage a lot of tourists to settle for those permits? People who will often take much longer and end up crowding the steps and subdome?

I always go super early, so that idea would be particularly helpful for me.


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Re: Daily Lottery like Half Dome?
Snacking Bear #52578 02/02/18 11:45 AM
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Early permits: you MUST be UP the cables before 10 AM; you MUST be at the base of the sub-dome by 9:30. Not there in time? Sorry, you have to turn around.

I am sure we would see a lot of 3 AM starts. There are so many people who shoot arrows at the idea. "What about those mountain lions lurking in the trees?" But it is well proven that people will rise early if they need to: just look at the number of 3 AM starts for Mt Whitney.

Re: Daily Lottery like Half Dome?
Steve C #52589 02/06/18 11:07 PM
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Up the cables by 10AM is totally doable. I started from my car at 5:45 and was on the summit by 9:45, so you don't even need to start as early as 3AM if you're fast enough :-) And since it was the first week of October I was only using a headlamp for about the first 45-60 minutes, probably wouldn't have needed it a month or more earlier.


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