Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board The Most Frustrating Evening Ever! Permit woes

After reading about some of the bugs with the new on-line permit application, I decided to wait a bit...hopefully the bugs would be worked out. Decided last night, it was time to fill out my application. Had some minor problems..mostly when already filled-out fields would disappear when I went to the next line. After numerous times of backing up & putting in the info several times, I finally got to the end. I went back thru the entire form, checking dates, etc. for accuracy, & then clicked "proceed to checkout". At that point, all information disappeared, & the website threw me completely out. OK...deep breaths! Picture the Trailside Meadow full of wildflowers. I can do this again. So, a 2nd start, same minor problems. Put it all in again. Check it all again. Yep...everything is there. Click "proceed to checkout" All right!! It's asking for my credit card info. Put it all in, click all the finish up buttons, & it tells me there is now missing information. 4 of my requested dates were mysteriously missing various bits of info. More deep breaths. Try to smell the sky pilots! Remember the sound of the waterfalls. OK, I can put it in again. Click, click. Again...red flags & highlighted missing fields. Different ones, of course. Finally after several sessions of this, I was able to get thru to the final screen. It actually showed the $6 charge to my credit card, & suggested I print the form as evidence of my payment. The only thing that would print up from this screen was the box at the bottom, inviting me to take a survey on my satisfaction with this website!! Yeah, I told them plenty, & put checkmarks in a lot of "1" & "2" boxes (scale from 1-10 for satisfaction).

I still have no idea if my application went thru or not. When going back into the site & checking "my account", it shows "No Reservations". Perhaps this is because I realize I won't actually have a reservation until after the lottery finishes, & I win a spot. OR, maybe the whole thing went missing again? In all, I spent over 2 hours trying to get thru this messed-up application. I could have refinanced my mortgage with less frustration!

How have the rest of you fared with this process? If they are trying to discourage folks from applying for a permit, they are certainly succeeding. I'm thinking there may be a lot of solitude on the mountain this year for a few lucky souls. Or, perhaps a several-mile-long lineup stretching down 395, of people who just gave up & are hoping to pick up an unused permit.

I've been climbing this mountain for over 20 years, & it doesn't get any easier, now that I'm well into senior citizen category. However, this year, it may be the permit process that does me in, not my advancing age!

I had a similar experience, so I know how you're feeling

Go to the "My Account" section of recreation.gov. You're correct that it won't show up under "Current Reservations" probably until after you're awarded a permit, but a bit lower on the left hand side, click on "Lottery Applications" and it should be there.



If it doesn't show up there, then it didn't go through and you'll have to do it again...

Ahah! I found the confirmation of my application. Thank you, thank you!

I also had a very similar experience with the site clearing all of my entries several times but eventually was sucessful (after many expletives and a few tears) but I was not given the opportunity to complete the survey as I would have liked to. I am glad you were able to give them feedback. Maybe next year will be better. Best of luck to all!

I found the experience buggy. I filled in 15 alternate dates. On almost every entry, I had to enter the entrance date twice. Entries frequently disappeared and had to be re-entered. Maybe this was just Mozilla Firefox compatibility issues. I was using Firefox 10.0.2 an an XP platform.

Brent, I was using Safari on my Mac and the same thing happened to me. I had to re-enter my information several times. It was very frustrating, to say the least. Hopefully, they work out these issues by next year and make this application more user-friendly.

That's frustrating. I called the forest service and they were telling me to be careful about hitting the "back" button on my browser or the "refresh" button. They seemed to think using Explorer worked better than Firefox or Chrome. I'm a Chrome guy so that was useful information for me. It eventually works but all this stuff about a computerized system being better and more efficient is a load of BS. It was much easier to fill out a form and mail it. It took 5 minutes.

Overall I'd say the system needs a lot of work. Hopefully they'll get it figured out before too many people get frustrated.

My wife is the rec.gov expert (Reserve America as well) because we RV in addition to backpacking. The competition for great RV sites means one has to have Navy time counting down the seconds till one can log on and make a reservation. If you make a mistake it means the difference between a great site and a so-so one in some places.

I asked her what she thought was happening in this situation. Her response is that she believes you are being "timed out." The server only gives you so many minutes to complete the process before assuming you aren't interested. Even she got dumped trying to make a Muir Trail reservation a couple of weeks ago.

I just put in a bunch of dates and there were errors in the first three and last three I selected, so I don't think I was getting timed out. Fortunately all went through - I think, since they charged me six bucks - and I hope it's seen as an opportunity for improvement next year....

If there is a charge on my account the day after the permit lottery deadline from recreation.gov, is it safe to assume that I was awarded permits? I didn't expect it to be done so quickly.

sure sounds like it. When you go into Recreation.gov My Account, does it show any reservations?

Brent, Hikergirl,
Mine now shows Reservation 1 of 1. Looks like it's a Go too!
It looks like a possible date given also. Could be wrong? Might just
have to wait to be totally sure. Whole process was much less painful
then writing, completing and sending a envelope to Inyo F.S. in my
humble opinion.
F. de España

Congrats. My Account just shows my lottery attempts, but no results yet.

Brent

credit card hit this morning from rec.gov. i didn't think they started to pic dates. i usually don't find out until april.

Interesting. I would have thought that with the on-line filing now, that an Email acknowledgement would be sent first... then the charges submitted.

Oh jees, I'm gonna be on pins and needles 'til I hear if my brothers got their permit.

i checked the site, it won't show anything until the 26th.

My credit card was hit for $15 this morning . I'm thinking I am getting a permit. Went to recreation.gov site, but I don't see any activity with respect to my permit. Would love to know the date as soon as possible.

Oh yeah, I see a pending charge too. Another 10 days to find out when???

My credit card also has a pending charge. The waiting is killing me I think we will start to see our dates as soon as the charges go through. I don't think it will be till the 26th. So excited this is my first trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey guys, I still don't see a reservation listed on my account either, but I called recreation.gov yesterday, told them about the charge on my credit card and asked if I had a reservation. They then provided the awarded date and sent me an email confirmation. I didn't get my first choice, but I got my second. I also got all the permits that I requested. Yay!

Give them a call at this number: 1-877-444-6777. They will tell you the date you were awarded and you won't have to wait. If you call now and get your confirmation, you won't have to worry about confirming later. Hope this helps!

Hike on!