This thread began with Maverick asking us to support a petition to the Forest Service. He wants them to reinstate a system in which 40% of permits were only issued in-person, as walk-up permits. Those permits were not available online. This is an exclusionary system, despite Maverick saying, “it shouldn't be an exclusionary system.â€
I oppose the petition. Any permit that is available as a walk-up should also be available simultaneously online. I will say more about the petition below, but first, I want to discuss a few issues that aren’t about to the petition.
There are 40 million people in California alone. The capacity of the wilderness is limited. Unfortunately, the days of writing our own permits at will are long gone. Until recently, we had to deal with an insane patchwork of permitting systems. We had to apply online, by snail mail, email, or by fax, depending on who issued the permit. Application dates and procedures were all over the place. A few years ago, I wanted to enter SEKI from a USFS trailhead. SEKI insisted that I had to have a permit, and the USFS didn’t require permits for that trailhead, so they refused to issue one. Getting that straightened out was a major cluster! Fortunately, more and more agencies are switching to Recreation.gov. Recreation.gov is far from perfect, but it’s more consistent, and it usually works pretty well.
Some people reserve permits, don’t use them, and then never cancel their reservations. Yes, this is a problem. Yes, a financial incentive to cancel unused permits might help. Nothing short of banning all reservations will eliminate the problem. Maybe they could adjust the quotas to reflect the fact that some people don’t use their permits, and maybe they have already done this. They aren’t going to ban reservations, so this issue should have no bearing on the petition.
Most popular trails have quotas in the summer. There are no quotas in the winter. Last summer, I needed a permit for an unpopular non-quota trail in Humboldt-Toiyabe NF during quota season. They close their self-issue station during quota season, and there was no way to reserve my permit online. It took several weeks of emails and phone tag to get my permit, and they charged me fifteen bucks for what should have been a free self-issue permit. I think we can all agree that permits for a trail with no quota should be as easy to obtain as possible. That means at least online and walk-up. Self-issue after hours would be nice, but that might not work, because some people would try to write self-issue permits for quota trails.
Reservations are a necessity. My friend, Gary, lives in Atlanta. My friend, Sabrina, lives in England. They both love to hike and climb in the Sierra. Planning a trip to the Sierra requires, you guessed it, planning. It involves plane tickets, a rental car, probably hotel and/or campground reservations, and wilderness permits. Many wilderness permits and campground reservations are available six months in advance. Six months is fine with me, but I wouldn’t mind something shorter.
In the early days of the quota system, holding back 40% of the permits for walk-up may have made sense. We didn’t all have internet access at home and a smart phone in our pocket or purse. It took much longer to reserve and obtain a permit before we had recreation.gov. In those days, the only viable choices were advance reservations and walk-up.
However, walk-up permits have serious problems. If you want a permit for a quota trail, you have to be standing in line at the permit station at 11:00 AM the day before your entry date. If you’re not a local, that means you have to miss an entire day of work, just to get your permit. If you don’t get your permit, you are screwed! Now that we can reserve permits online, there is no excuse for not allowing everyone to book ALL permits online. Everyone on this thread obviously has internet access and knows how to use it. If you can’t figure out recreation.gov, or if you just prefer to talk to a ranger in person, go ahead and do the walk-up.
The COVID-19 pandemic required some big changes. We quit doing anything, including issuing permits, in person. They made the old “40% walk-up†permits available online two weeks in advance. This was a big improvement over the old system. We didn’t have to pack our stuff and drive several hours, only to find out that somebody beat us to our coveted trailhead. We could know for sure, before packing our gear and driving for several hours, that we had our permits. This is a reasonable compromise for those that can’t or don’t want to plan six months in advance. BTW, two weeks wasn’t my idea, and I think one week is also reasonable.
If, after actually reading this, you still think we should go back to the exclusionary 40% walk-up only system, I have this suggestion: Ask the NFL to reserve a big block of Superbowl tickets for people who drive to the stadium on Superbowl Sunday and want to buy a ticket.
I don't have much trust in the online system, especially if all the people who were unable to reserve permits the first time, will all be now in the bidding for the same so-called "walk-ins".
Maverick’s intentions are clear. He wants to exclude people who apply for permits six months in advance from applying for the 40% he wants to reserve for walk-up only. This petition is a bad idea. Please don’t support it.
