Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

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erutan
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by erutan »

That's a good point on different jurisdictions. I was shocked when I was charged $15 for a walk up permit from roads end after years of never paying for a permit when I was bumming it in Tuolumne backpackers for a few seasons then #vanlifing it along 395 in '14 on.

Humboldt Toiyobe still has walk ups - the last time I checked you were supposed to fill out a form/register and then wait for someone to come out to your car in a sort of socially distanced setup. SEKI is still doing walkups if I recall correctly.

update: nope, they're doing rec.gov for walkups, but I like they're releeased 3 days in advance vs 2 weeks. in June they had "50 percent [of permits are] available on a first-come, first-served basis at the Bridgeport Ranger District office beginning at 1 p.m. the day before or the day of a wilderness trip." Their socially distanced curbside pickup setup is described on the link above. Self-service permits left in a drop box before quotas come into place on the last Saturday in June.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/htnf/pas ... eprd673368

One other thing I was thinking of was the idea of having more "thru" permits for popular trailheads like Yosemite has for LYV & Glen Aulin (past bunnel point for the former, 1mi past glen aulin for the latter)=. Having a sort of thru Kearsarge where you can't camp in the Kearsarge Lakes basin your first night would be great - even better if thru permits had some flexibility to them since people are going to disperse more (or all just camp at charlotte lake lol), say a quota per week instead of day. I'm sure it'd be abused by people that can't get a normal kearsarge permit, and there aren't enough backcountry rangers to enforce it, but it's a nice fantasy.
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Teresa Gergen
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by Teresa Gergen »

I would like to see walk-in permits go back to be issued on a "last-minute" basis, by whatever mechanism (online or in person) can make that happen. However, if Inyo doesn't go back to walk-in permits being issued the day of and the day before, and sticks with issuing them beginning 14 days in advance, I would like to suggest the following idea.

My premises:
1. The only valid reason to have a quota system that begins on a given date in the year and ends on a given date later in that year is to limit the amount of use each area gets during the season defined by those dates.
2. I understand that the point is to spread out the use, but the earth just doesn't know the difference between a given amount of use that happens today, yesterday, or tomorrow, or even a few days before or after today.
3. The effect of making the rules too difficult, let alone too unsafe, to follow is that people stop following rules.
4. Some recreational activities cannot be done safely without last-minute decision-making, whether it be peak or rock climbing with a poor weather forecast, or an asthmatic backpacker needing to avoid a poor air quality day.
5. Fourteen days out is absolutely not last-minute -- or "walk-up" in any sense of the word.
6. There's a reason some of the quota spaces are passed out 6 months in advance while others are held as "walk-ups." Some types of trips can be scheduled 6 months in advance and some can't.
7. I ran into locals this summer who freely admitted they no longer have any qualms about going in on the wrong day, or the wrong nearby trail, when they couldn't get the permit they wanted because there were no real walk-up permits anymore.

My suggestion is one that would allow exactly the same number of quota spots to be passed out as currently are, so there is no meaningful change in the amount of use happening in an area during a quota season. It allows the 14 day online recreation.gov system that we appear to be getting stuck with to continue to function. It would almost certainly promote higher compliance. It would help prevent people from not cancelling a permit they won't use when they decide they can't go at the last minute, since fewer people would need to cancel last minute. It might well make people who don't even bother to pull permits get them after all.

I propose that, if a 14-day-advance "walk-in" scenario is what we're stuck with, people select a start date for their trip, and the number of people for the trip, as is currently done in recreation.gov. There really is no reason to need to select an exit date since it doesn't affect the quota. And there's no reason to need to enter where you plan to be each night. The permit would be good for some maximum number of days once you enter. And you could enter say up to 3? 4? more? days before, or after, the date of your permit. That would give people who have enough flexibility to be using walk-in permits anyway, enough wiggle room to move up or delay a trip by a few days to avoid a storm if they're planning a higher risk activity, or avoid a string of a few days where air quality is forecast to be worse than the days before or after, if that's important given someone's health conditions, or allow for a trip partner's delayed arrival due to a highway shutdown, flat tire, cancelled flight, etc, all without having to cancel an existing permit that they've already pulled and had intended to use, and trying to get another one for a different date at the last minute.

The process on recreation.gov, and the process of requesting a permit, can continue just as it is right now (if they have no intention of changing it back). It's just that, if you're stopped in the backcountry with a permit, the ranger checking your permit would consider you legal as long as you started your trip within the specified date range around the start date printed on the permit, instead of only on the start date.

Thoughts? If there's some glaring thing I'm overlooking, can you suggest a solution to it that would make my proposal work instead of just shooting it down? If the majority of people think it's a bad or unworkable solution, so be it. If the opposite is true, and, possibly with some additional suggestions to enhance the idea, people here think this would solve a lot of the frustrations people have been expressing all season about the current walk-in permit system, is there someone here with the right connections to present this idea to Inyo and perhaps other jurisdictions? (I have very limited experience with any of them besides Inyo, hence my references to them here.)
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by wildhiker »

Hi Teresa,
I like your idea to have more flexibillity on your trip start date. The only problem I see is that it could lead to more "peak loads". For example,
if there are 15 permits per day on a trailhead, under the current scheme, you can't have more than 15 starting out on the same day (assuming people actually obey the rules). With a "flexible" start date, you could imagine 30 or even 45 bunching up on the same start date, which could lead to extra impacts, particularly if there are limited camp spots one day's hike in. This is most likely to be a problem on weekends, so perhaps your plan could be limited to non-weekend days. For example, if you were allowing a one day before or after flexibility (giving you 3 days to start on), you could limit that to the day before or the day after only if those days are not Friday or Saturday.
-Phil
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Teresa Gergen
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by Teresa Gergen »

Those are both valid points - that weekends would be more busy, and that there could be limited camp spots for the average hiker's first day in.

On the other hand, in your example, some of the original 15 would be moving their start date too. Other than the weekend issue, the more days you allow on either side of the selected start date, the more things would naturally spread themselves out. So, what if you could legally start say, 2 week-day days on either side of your selected start date? A selected Monday start could start as early as the Thurs before, or the Wed after, but not on the Sat-Sun in between. Having 5 possible start dates on a permit would go a long way toward solving the problems people are having.

If a storm is forecast and everyone moves their permit to the same dates before or after it, one could argue that there's less impact to trails and campsites if more people use them when they're dry than if the currently-allowed number of people per day use them in the mud. But a lot of people would still backpack during a poor forecast and not move their start date because their selected dates are fixed by a work/vacation schedule. And, in terms of safety, a peak climbing trip, for example, might only need the summit day to fall on good weather, not the whole trip. It seems unlikely that everyone with a given selected start date would want to move their true start date to the same new date.

And, there really are some other important issues. Wouldn't SAR be happier with making it easier for people to make safer choices - the choices they would make elsewhere in the mountains where permit systems don't exist? When the only safe choice is to cancel, we end up with all the problems people have been talking about here surrounding canceled permits. Especially when the cancellation is last-minute because the weather forecasts aren't accurate enough soon enough to do otherwise.
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by erutan »

I'd think that flexible start dates would be best for a "thru" type permit to reduce overuse. I'm sure there's people shifting a day or two off their permits in the current system (maybe that's offset by no-shows, or is a little over quota), but that's far less than if kearsarge (with a 60 per day quota) gets 150-200 people a day over the weekend.

I'd rather things go like what humboldt-toiyobe (mentioned in the post above yours) is currently doing and have online walkups released 3 days in advance (one should have a decent idea of weather by then, even if it's not quite as immediate as the day before releases of old). Having a couple thru permits for trailheads with smaller quotas would be nice (6-10 day for kearsarge? etc), as I'm rarely interested in stopping at the first overused area along a trail as are most in this group.
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by michaelzim »

@erutan and @Teresa Gergen
michaelzim wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 12:49 pm
Also please bear in mind that for Sierra NF and their recent change-over to rec.gov they will be wanting user feedback in fall once we all see how it shakes out. So far the West Side entries have been spared the zoo along the Hwy 395 corridor. Long may that last!
I would like to suggest that you guys/gals submit your suggestions to Inyo and Sierra NF supes. As mentioned I know they are interested in feedback and you have valid suggestions that can maybe get tweaked into the system - or at least how it is implemented at the local level. Sierra NF for instance is implementing differently to Inyo and makes it easier to get a last-minute permit and out of hours permit pickup.

I realize that the standard reply form to Inyo or Sierra is a boilerplate thing online but if patient you can get to a real person's email address. Just say you have feedback that needs to be forwarded to the person in charge of the permits software or something, and request their address. For Sierra NF I can suggest Debbie McD. at Prather, and for Inyo Cindy G. at Bishop. They are super helpful and should pass along any info that is beyond their purview.

That aside, it does seem like permits for Sierra NF have been pretty much available all summer especially once the "W" quota is released into the system 2 weeks in advance. There has seldom been a zero available for any trailheads close to the permit dates whenever I have looked.
Even Inyo has not been quite as tight as I expected, with some of the most popular trailheads like Kearsarge having some longer term permits available in advance and "W" permits not going in micro-seconds upon release - especially for weekdays.

Best ~ Michaelzim
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by erutan »

Good point Michael.

re: the propsal above, even if we did go to a fluid system, saying where you are staying on your trip is still useful for when NFS is trying to evac people due to fires or floods (bubbs back in 17 iirc). I can't see all of them going that way, and even in this summer of heavy monsoons there's only really been 2-3 days where it was unsafe to go out due to weather (LAL4) around 3-4 weeks ago. It's really an edge case if that comes up near the beginning of your trip, and in 19 we only had one moderate storm was ~3 days or so of rain.
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by Bishop_Bob »

Sierra agencies aren't the only ones who have permit-holder no-shows:

https://www.opb.org/article/2021/09/22/ ... s-no-show/

Working through the article and related links, it looks like these permits are also sold on recreation.gov.

I've said it before (in my best old-man, things-were-better-when...voice): the internet has ruined camping and backpacking (not the acts per se, but the things needed to do these acts). None of us can count on recreating on a whim. Gone are the days I could roll up to Lone Pine and get a backcountry permit for where I wanted to go (or -- can you even believe I could reliably do this -- pulling into Zion NP on a Friday and getting a site in the campground in the park). And now, more local to me currently, "entry reservations" are required for the Brainard Lake area west of Boulder (which is somewhat like the Sabrina/South Lake area in its accessibility to high country), and I now can't go fishing/day hiking/backpacking there based on the immediate weather forecast because permits are snatched 2 weeks ahead of time. And word-on-the-street is that the parking lots remain half full every day.
:soapbox:

I mentioned several months ago that I took my family to Yellowstone in June. I reserved the campgound site on the morning the bookings were available (which was 4 or 6 months prior), and I couldn't even get 3 nights in a row at the same campsite. The campground was otherwise completely booked, but we discovered it was only half occupied during our entire stay. You can imagine how frustrated we were to be moving our tent and other do-dads from 1 site to another, only to see that the site we had for nights one and two went vacant for night three.

Sometimes I just want to disengage from the way things are now.

Sorry for the venting and ranting.
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by balzaccom »

Bishop_Bob wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:15 pm Sierra agencies aren't the only ones who have permit-holder no-shows:


I mentioned several months ago that I took my family to Yellowstone in June. I reserved the campgound site on the morning the bookings were available (which was 4 or 6 months prior), and I couldn't even get 3 nights in a row at the same campsite. The campground was otherwise completely booked, but we discovered it was only half occupied during our entire stay. You can imagine how frustrated we were to be moving our tent and other do-dads from 1 site to another, only to see that the site we had for nights one and two went vacant for night three.
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Re: Petition To Change Back To Pre-Covid Walk-in Permit System

Post by c9h13no3 »

Bishop_Bob wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:15 pm I mentioned several months ago that I took my family to Yellowstone in June. I reserved the campgound site on the morning the bookings were available (which was 4 or 6 months prior), and I couldn't even get 3 nights in a row at the same campsite. The campground was otherwise completely booked, but we discovered it was only half occupied during our entire stay. You can imagine how frustrated we were to be moving our tent and other do-dads from 1 site to another, only to see that the site we had for nights one and two went vacant for night three.

Sometimes I just want to disengage from the way things are now.

Sorry for the venting and ranting.
No, this rant is spot on!

Outdoor recreation is more popular than ever, and yet I suspect the occupancy rates of campgrounds like the one you were in are even lower than they were 10-20 years ago. It's costing users more money, and less people are enjoying these resources. As a customer, it's a raw deal. And it's leading to big increases in dispersed camping, overcrowding in un-permitted areas, ect.
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