Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board quotas for half dome now ?

my mom told me they are going to have quotas now

Don't know your mom , but here's the official word:

http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/hdpermits.htm

Quotas in effect Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, limit 300 day hikers (available ONLY online) and 100 backpackers.

More at http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/upload/halfdomemanagement.pdf .

That seems reasonable. 300 is a lot of people and reserving online makes it convenient.

Except you cannot get a permit any other way, so no impulse climbs. I don't go there any more anyway - too many tourons.

No quotas for Mt. Conness, or Dana, or Unicorn. All better, IMO, than HD.

Glad climbers are exempt, as I've never been UP the trail, only down it

I'm confused as the the rationale behind this change. Safety is cited as a concern, but I don't see this will increase safety per se. A quick review of the accidents on the cables suggests that staying off the cables in inclement weather would be the best way to reduce accidents. I don't see how a permit system will lead people to turn around..in fact, having a single day permit may actually incent people to take more risks. We always say the mountain will be there tomorrow...true, but tomoorow you are not permitted to climb it.
I also can't make sense of a free permit system that charges you for a permit. I know it's only $1.50, but that still isn't free. I know it goes to the reservation system, but that still doesn't make it free. Free =$0.00. Government agencies have been somewhat challenged in understanding the concept.
On the flip side, the last time I went up to HD, I was caught in a line at the sub dome. A couple folks told me they has already been waiting for 45 minutes to move up. People coming down said they had waited over 1.5 hours to climb. I prefer to climb mountains in groups of less than 850. Even 300 is excessive for a "wilderness" trip. HD ceased being a wilderness nearly 100 years ago, but it would be a better experience with the smaller crowd.
My advice? Leave about 3 am on a weekday. Watch the sun clome up as you climb the cables. Eat breakfast on top and spend an hour or so. Then high-tail it off before the crowds or the weather have a chance to spoil your day.

Be safe out there!

I think the following excerpt from one of the documents linked to in one of the posts above addresses the safety concerns very well. I also read elsewhere that it was determined that traffic up the cables is not freeflowing when more than approximately 400 people per day summit Half Dome, thus the 400 per day limit (300 to dayhikers). See also, additional links to various publications concerning this matter.

Excerpt:

I second summitscott's point.
More people might attempt in marginal conditions because they got their free ($1.50=$0?) permit months in advance.
With no way to get cancelled permits or on a whim.

I haven't hiked HD and would like to - just don't know if I can commit to one date months in advance. Might just have to take some weekdays off to make it happen.

I guess the fee is like the Whitney fee - the permit is free; but you gotta pay to reserve it; but you can't just walk in and pick up a free HD permit.

If I read the info on this correctly, I think you can get HD permits up to one week in advance (although, still, either online or by phone). This year, starting March 1, you can reserve HD permits for May/June, then on May 1, for July/August, etc. This is an unfortunate deviation from the more normal 6-month-in-advance-of-hike-date policy that Inyo NF, for example, has in place for reserving their non-Whitney Zone permits.

My point is that they will likely be all taken months in advance and probably little odds of getting one a week out. which is still too far away to accurately gauge weather and conditions.

I will declare this a colossal failure even as it is just getting off the ground.
On 3-1, the first onsale date, I tried to get a Fri or Sat permit in June. (My May is booked) I lagged a bit by starting about 7:10 am. No Sat where available at that time. That means that 1200 permits plus sold out in 10 minutes. (Probably really at least double that counting May and Sundays)
I did procure a Friday 6-4 permit for 4. There was no ability to put a range of dates, so it's hurriedly changing dates over and over again. So, I would need to take Thurs and Fri off work to use this permit (still debating and will continue to do so)
Now, with my online or mail only permit in hand 3 plus months beforehand(actually only electronically) I sought out a campsite. Of course, campsites for this date sold out back in January.
In order to hike Half Dome on the days of Fri-Sun one would really have to secure lodging five months out in the frenzy that that is, then try to secure a hike permit 2-5 for the exact same days.
Maybe I should have just spent my $6 on a beer?

I've never hiked half dome and it's on my list of things to do. This whole reservation plan makes it quite the effort just to get permission to do so for most of us employed people.

Or maybe just go thru the effort of trying to get a backpack permit 24 weeks out?

All this to set for only one date months in advance that could quite eaasily be cancelled by weather.

I'm planning on bypassing the entire permit process by doing it during a weekday, and by backpacking into Little Yosemite Valley.
So I'll take some week off work this summer for a Yosemite trip.
Two nights before I plan to start the backpacking I'll be camped out on the doorstep of the permit office around midnight so as to ensure I'm at the head of the line!

My understanding is the wilderness permit means a HD permit also. But that won't even matter since it's the middle of the week.

Joel,
Not that this would apply to you since you will have a wilderness permit that would work as a HD permit plus you're planning on midweek.

Any ol' wilderness permit won't work. It has to be a route that would take you to HD or by HD anyway. A permit for a trip out of Hetch Hetchy to Lake Vernon and back will not qualify as a HD permit.

I was not trying to imply otherwise, although in re-reading my post I now see the ambiguity in what I said.

I'm assuming that when you're at the permit counter picking up your wilderness permit you'd be able to get a separate HD permit for the day you plan to summit. The trip plans would have been communicated to the ranger and the need for the HD permit would have to make sense to the ranger before you'd get it.

Do we know if there will be two permits issued for wilderness permit holders wanting to do HD on a weekend or holiday? One wilderness and one HD.

Online registration here:
http://www.recreation.gov/tourDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&tourId=294690&cat=1

More info here:
http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/hdpermits.htm

"Backpackers with an appropriate wilderness permit can receive a Half Dome permit when they pick up their wilderness permit with no additional reservation required."

Hiking date/First day to make reservations(7 am PT):
May/March 1
June/March 1
July/April 1
August/April 1
September/May 1
October/May 1

Looks like May and June are already sold out.

The fundamental flaw with the reservation system is that the cost of canceling is low. It often appears people reserve permits/sites even if there is only a 10-50 percent chance they will actually use them. They can cancel very late in the process and lose only a few dollars. Some people will reserve multiple permits/sites for the same dates, then later decide which one they intend to utilize. That leaves the rest of us unable to get a permit and having to rely on any openings on a first come first serve basis.

A better system for these high demand areas is needed.

I live 3 1/2 hours from the trailhead and like to do this as a spring warmup hike. It's a nice weekend trip for locals. Not anymore. This limits access to a lot of working people. I kind of enjoy the weekend madness and I'm certainly not doing this hike for solitude although the scenery is spectacular. I just hit the trail at 5am and only have to deal with the crowds on the way down and they are very amusing and yes a bit dangerous but that is their right.

All the permits were gone the 1st day. I'd rather be charged 5 - 10 dollars so they could hire a couple seasonal rangers to put out there and to prevent people from hoarding them. I know they are afraid to do this because it actually creates more liability. They are strangely absent on the whole trail even in times of bad weather or overcrowding.

Oh well - I'm heading out on a Thursday this year. Last year I got held up by Rangers at the sub dome while they retrieved a body from a fall on Saturday the day before. Had nothing to do with crowds. People got stuck in bad weather at 3:30 in the afternoon - same weather that had been happening everyday for a week. We were at the base of the cables at 10am in the bright sunshine. 3:30 in the afternoon same weather appeared but we were back in camp drinking beer by then.

Permits won't stop the accidents.

I don't think one can get their money back. I'm pretty sure that the $6 I spent is all to the recreation.gov people and I'll never see it again.

If you didn't get a permit last week, you're not gonna hike on a Fri-Sun in May or June. Quoting from above at the Yose site
"Permits are not available in the park or on a first-come, first-served basis."

It appears there is no cancellation system and no reissue.

My cynical mind says that the study of this temporary system will lead to a "permanent" system with a far lower quota than this 400 number. Since there will be no reissuse; there will never be 400 hikers on any given day. They will analyze their data and say that since they never had more than say 348 hikers on any day; they'll set the new quota at 300.

Probably a good thing for Half Dome for many reasons, not just the death by dummy part. NPS did a good job avoiding those smart enough to avoid the dummy parts of YNP.

I've been up the 80 percent dome twice after hours, and on weekdays both times. It's a trip, one where you realize you're only 1/7 of 7 billionth important, if at all.