4 ms·

Most of the lotteries/reservations are for cabins, campgrounds, and rafting popular rivers. For day hiking, very few places require a permit.

SoftTalker 3y ago
There's often a daily park admission fee you pay at the gate. Per person or per car, it varies. Sometimes included with a camping reservation, sometimes not.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  This fee goes to the park itself. Booz allen only gets paid for the lottery system.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    They are also getting paid for every campsite reservation and many "free" permits that are first come first served. One example, the parking lot for Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge requires a permit that allows you to enter a rest area off the interstate during a specific one hour period that also serves as the parking for the falls. You may then stay as long as you like. The permits are free but I you pay a $2 fee per car to recreation.gov for the privilege. Despite being a highway rest area it is illegal to stop there from Memorial Day to Labor Day without a pre-purchased permit. I generally avoid the area during high season so I have no idea how strictly this is enforced should you ever have an urgent need for a toilet.
solardev 3y ago
> For day hiking, very few places require a permit. These days though, even day hiking is increasingly permitted :( I live near the Oregon Cascades, an area that used to be unpermitted but got too popular. A few years ago they introduced a permit system (for both day hikes and overnights), but implemented it terribly... a large % of the permits were released on a single day and were sold out within hours. People ended up hoarding multiple permits for multiple weekends because they couldn't be sure which weekend they could go (or what the weather would be like), then 40% of the permit holders never showed up on their given reservations... so nobody got to go. They've since tweaked the system. https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/16/wilderness-permit-central-cascades-changes/ https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/16/wilderness-permit-cen... Your point absolutely stands -- that day hike permits are still largely unusual across the entirety of the US public lands systems -- but more and more places are getting so popular that they do require reservations. It's one of the downsides of social systems like TikTok or Alltrails, which improve discoverability but also focus public attention on the few best trails rather than the thousands of "still pretty good" trails.

SoftTalker 3y ago

There's often a daily park admission fee you pay at the gate. Per person or per car, it varies. Sometimes included with a camping reservation, sometimes not.

HDThoreaun 3y ago
This fee goes to the park itself. Booz allen only gets paid for the lottery system.
- brewdad 3y ago
  They are also getting paid for every campsite reservation and many "free" permits that are first come first served. One example, the parking lot for Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge requires a permit that allows you to enter a rest area off the interstate during a specific one hour period that also serves as the parking for the falls. You may then stay as long as you like. The permits are free but I you pay a $2 fee per car to recreation.gov for the privilege. Despite being a highway rest area it is illegal to stop there from Memorial Day to Labor Day without a pre-purchased permit. I generally avoid the area during high season so I have no idea how strictly this is enforced should you ever have an urgent need for a toilet.

solardev 3y ago

> For day hiking, very few places require a permit. These days though, even day hiking is increasingly permitted :( I live near the Oregon Cascades, an area that used to be unpermitted but got too popular. A few years ago they introduced a permit system (for both day hikes and overnights), but implemented it terribly... a large % of the permits were released on a single day and were sold out within hours. People ended up hoarding multiple permits for multiple weekends because they couldn't be sure which weekend they could go (or what the weather would be like), then 40% of the permit holders never showed up on their given reservations... so nobody got to go. They've since tweaked the system. https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/16/wilderness-permit-central-cascades-changes/ https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/16/wilderness-permit-cen... Your point absolutely stands -- that day hike permits are still largely unusual across the entirety of the US public lands systems -- but more and more places are getting so popular that they do require reservations. It's one of the downsides of social systems like TikTok or Alltrails, which improve discoverability but also focus public attention on the few best trails rather than the thousands of "still pretty good" trails.