Update: Change to slot canyon reservation system in Zion

[tanya]

March 1, 2012
For Immediate Release
Ray O’Neil 435 772-7823
Backcountry Information 435 772-0170
12-05

Changes to Zion National Park Wilderness Permit System

Zion National Park has changed its wilderness permit system to allow visitors to reserve last minute slot canyon day use permits via an online reservation system. This new system will eliminate the need for visitors to wait in line at the visitor center for permits. Reservations for popular day trips such as the Subway (Left Fork), Mystery Canyon and The Narrows are now available at
www.nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/backcountry-reservations-and-permits.htm.

In late fall of 2011, the park requested comments from visitors about possible options for upgrading the wilderness permit procedures. Over 150 comments were received and the vast majority of respondents indicated a preference for an online system to replace the current system. The previous system required visitors to arrive early in the morning and wait in long lines to assure access to the limited number of available last minute permits.

The last minute drawing is held at 1:00 pm MT, two days prior to the requested date of the trip. Entries for the last minute drawing are available seven days prior to the drawing until noon MST two days before a trip date. Applicants are immediately notified of the status of their request via email. Procedures for advance reservations have not changed. Visitors are most likely to secure their desired reservation if they use the advance reservation system up to three months prior to their trip. The process for obtaining overnight permits has not changed. Half of all backcountry campsites are available online, the remaining sites are offered as walk-in permits that become available the day before the beginning of a trip. Please visit www.nps.gov/zion for more information.

[restrac2000]

Confused....

Does this mean the remainder of the reservable half are now available in that short-term window? Or are the walk-up permits now available on-line in those 2 days?

Phillip

[Iceaxe]

It's a little easier to understand if you visit the actual permit page, which has been updated:
https://zionpermits.nps.gov/

LAST MINUTE DRAWING APPLICATIONS

The fee for participating in the last minute drawing is $5.00

Last minute drawing applications are taken between 2 days (until noon) and 7 days in advance of the trip date for Slot Canyon Day Trips that have filled the reservable allocations. The last minute drawing runs 2 days prior to the requested trip date at 1pm MST.

If I'm reading this correctly the "Last Minute Drawing" fills the slots that were formally called "walk-in's".

So... if you want to do a slot long term reservation is your best shot.... than Last Minute... and finally walk up if anything is left open.

[dougr]

Interesting. Gives me a shot for some canyons over spring break. The problem is, I'll be out in the Escalante drainage 2-5 days before getting to Zion. I know there's a wack signal coming from somewhere that's receivable down at 40 Mile Tank and the Steven's Arch TH. Will have to find a spot where I can get back to the car and tether! Hopefully there's data now. I recall it was voice only before.

[ratagonia]

This seems like a very intelligent solution to the problems. Hurrah!

Tom

[Iceaxe]

I noticed this on the Zion website that explains the revised permit system in plain and simple terms:

Slot Canyon Day Trips
Walk-in permits for popular slot canyons can be difficult to obtain. Plan ahead and obtain a reservation to avoid any disappointment. 75% of slot canyon permits will be awarded through Calendar Reservations and Advanced Lottery Reservations. Individuals can submit an application for the Last Minute Drawing to obtain any remaining reservations for permits.

Any remaining wilderness permits not taken through the reservation system are available as Walk-in Permits. Any wilderness areas not listed for reservations are only available as Walk-in Permits.


http://www.nps.gov/zion/planyourvisi...in-permits.htm

[restrac2000]

Much better. Will be interesting to see how this solution works out.

Phillip

[Ryebrye]

My first thought was "cool, no more lines" - but then my second thought was "man... they just created a monster"

If you go to their permits page, you will see:
"The lottery application fee is $5.00 (non-refundable)"

If you have a group of 8 people who want to get a subway permit - why would you not have all 8 people submit entries into the lottery system? Each of you pay your $5 and as long as no other group thinks of the same thing - you have 8x more of a chance of getting a permit than the other groups do.

Except... the other groups WILL think of the same thing - because they are not stupid. So now every group of 8 people will be submitting requests and paying $5 each to get into the lottery in the hopes that one of them gets a permit.

But it's not just the Subway you might be interested in - and there isn't a way to specify "Just give me a permit to any one of these canyons" in your lottery application - so now your group will have to submit last-minute entries for a few different canyons if you want to maximize your chance of getting a permit to something you want to do.

So if your group of 8 REALLY wants to do the subway, why not have each of you somehow submit two entries to the lottery? Either use two email addresses each... etc - but if you do that then you at least double your chances.... (and so on)

What the NPS has done is create a quasi-auction over their resources but rather than make it a fair auction where only the winner pays - they are doing it in an unfair way by getting money from anyone who even wants to try.

In the old system - if you were in line at 6am and all the permits were gone, you at least had a chance of getting a permit for some other canyon that you were interested in. In this system, you'll have to now go pay for entries into multiple lotteries. You will have no visibility into how many other people are entering the lottery so you won't really know if you need to

Plus - there is no visibility into what does the lottery picking. This isn't Nevada and there is no gaming commission here to investigate if the back country desk worker's friends seem to always have great luck when they enter these 'lotteries' (or if the NPS decided to just plain not give out any winning entries for the lottery for a given weekend - would any of us have enough information to know that we weren't all just 'unlucky'?)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

It seems like the NPS just said "Hey... see that long line of people waiting for permits? What if we could find a way to charge an additional $5 for each person in that line for the hope of getting a permit to the canyon they wanted... and they'd be happy to all pay it too because then they wont have to wait in this line anymore"

Or another way of putting it is that the NPS created their own version of powerball where they are always the one that wins the jackpot.

[ratagonia]

My first thought was "cool, no more lines" - but then my second thought was "man... they just created a monster"

If you go to their permits page, you will see:
"The lottery application fee is $5.00 (non-refundable)"

If you have a group of 8 people who want to get a subway permit - why would you not have all 8 people submit entries into the lottery system? Each of you pay your $5 and as long as no other group thinks of the same thing - you have 8x more of a chance of getting a permit than the other groups do.

...

Have you no honor, sir?

[Deathcricket]

My first thought was "cool, no more lines" - but then my second thought was "man... they just created a monster"

If you go to their permits page, you will see:
"The lottery application fee is $5.00 (non-refundable)"

If you have a group of 8 people who want to get a subway permit - why would you not have all 8 people submit entries into the lottery system? Each of you pay your $5 and as long as no other group thinks of the same thing - you have 8x more of a chance of getting a permit than the other groups do.

Except... the other groups WILL think of the same thing - because they are not stupid. So now every group of 8 people will be submitting requests and paying $5 each to get into the lottery in the hopes that one of them gets a permit.

But it's not just the Subway you might be interested in - and there isn't a way to specify "Just give me a permit to any one of these canyons" in your lottery application - so now your group will have to submit last-minute entries for a few different canyons if you want to maximize your chance of getting a permit to something you want to do.

So if your group of 8 REALLY wants to do the subway, why not have each of you somehow submit two entries to the lottery? Either use two email addresses each... etc - but if you do that then you at least double your chances.... (and so on)

What the NPS has done is create a quasi-auction over their resources but rather than make it a fair auction where only the winner pays - they are doing it in an unfair way by getting money from anyone who even wants to try.

In the old system - if you were in line at 6am and all the permits were gone, you at least had a chance of getting a permit for some other canyon that you were interested in. In this system, you'll have to now go pay for entries into multiple lotteries. You will have no visibility into how many other people are entering the lottery so you won't really know if you need to

Plus - there is no visibility into what does the lottery picking. This isn't Nevada and there is no gaming commission here to investigate if the back country desk worker's friends seem to always have great luck when they enter these 'lotteries' (or if the NPS decided to just plain not give out any winning entries for the lottery for a given weekend - would any of us have enough information to know that we weren't all just 'unlucky'?)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

It seems like the NPS just said "Hey... see that long line of people waiting for permits? What if we could find a way to charge an additional $5 for each person in that line for the hope of getting a permit to the canyon they wanted... and they'd be happy to all pay it too because then they wont have to wait in this line anymore"

Or another way of putting it is that the NPS created their own version of powerball where they are always the one that wins the jackpot.

Very interesting point! But the cool thing about this is you can ensure with enough email addresses and $5 donations that you get the spot. Paying $300 for a permit and standing in line from 11:00pm the previous day are on par IMO. In fact there is an "underground" service here in Saint George run by genius college students that guarantees you subway tickets for $100 and they are doing quite well. I feel bad cause now they are going to be out of business.

But this really is the best solution I think. If it didn't have a $5 price people would still abuse the system in the manner you speak of. Perhaps more so.

[Ryebrye]

Have you no honor, sir?

Is there anything dishonorable about having every member of your group sign up for the lottery? Each person in the group has the same chance of winning in that case. The NPS doesn't have any message on their page discouraging this behavior - they only have a note saying that all of the money from your entry fee goes to Zion. By having each member of your group enter the lottery, you are giving more money to Zion that stays in Zion.

(The part about creating multiple accounts trying to get 2x entries per person - I will agree that is dishonorable.)

This system will not have much impact on me at all - (I moved a few thousand miles away) - but when I go back to Zion to visit I'll not be doing canyons that are the main trade routes anyway.

I'm just trying to point out that this system gets rid of one problem - the line - but trades it for a bunch of other less-visible problems.

A better, but slightly more complicated, implementation would involve you joining the lottery and submitting an ordered list of permits that you were trying to get for that weekend. This would mimic the old "wait in line, but if what I wanted wasn't around any more I'll take X instead" and only require one fee. They could automatically bill you for any permits that you were granted out of that list for the number of people in your group, and not give any refunds if you reduce your group size later. This wouldn't protect against a group that was the "subway-canyon-or-bust" group, but it would give other groups incentive to NOT all pig-pile on the list because the chance of multiple people in the group winning permits for the second, third, or forth canyons in the list would be too great. (Although perhaps they would still do this - and you'd get a lot of canyons with permits that go unused - which I will admit could be a bigger problem because then one group of assholes could be using up reservations they never actually intend to use)

The NPS implementation of that approach would be to basically shuffle up everyone who entered the lottery - and then go down in order trying to fill everyone's requests. (Simulate a single-file backcountry line that randomly picked who got to come up to the window next). If everything in your list was filled up, you would not get anything and you'd be done.

Even if they charged $5 for each canyon you put on your list of canyons you were trying to get access too (which I would not agree with, but it seems they are doing this for revenue reasons as much as they are for resource control reasons) - they'd still make a killing off of this and for the average person who would prefer a specific couple of canyons but has a few others they want to do as well, I think it would provide a better experience.

Maybe with all the money they will make this year from memorial day weekend alone with their current system they can afford to revamp it next year to be more user-friendly.

[Ryebrye]

Very interesting point! But the cool thing about this is you can ensure with enough email addresses and $5 donations that you get the spot. Paying $300 for a permit and standing in line from 11:00pm the previous day are on par IMO. In fact there is an "underground" service here in Saint George run by genius college students that guarantees you subway tickets for $100 and they are doing quite well. I feel bad cause now they are going to be out of business.

But this really is the best solution I think. If it didn't have a $5 price people would still abuse the system in the manner you speak of. Perhaps more so.

Yeah, the NPS has always had a rule where they require the permit holder be on the trip - but I suppose that underground group could arrange some kind of "well-timed-coincidence" where they just happen to go turn in the permit they don't want anymore to the back country desk while you (the new group) just happen to be the next group in line to get it when they return it.

(An economist might argue that an auction is the only economically efficient way of allocating this resource.)

[Iceaxe]

If you have a group of 8 people who want to get a subway permit - why would you not have all 8 people submit entries into the lottery system? Each of you pay your $5 and as long as no other group thinks of the same thing - you have 8x more of a chance of getting a permit than the other groups do.

We just did this... I'll let you know how it flies... It seems fair to me that everyone on the trip with a credit card and email account should have an equal shot at a lottery permit.

You also have more than just 8 chances as you have your backup dates. (8 x 3) 24 chances to score a date. Honestly, I consider $40 a drop in the bucket to what I spend on a trip to Zion. Hell, last trip to Zion the tip on our bar tab was more than $40.

[nieder81]

I personally am not a fan of this new system from how I understand it now. I am planning on heading to Zion in June for my honeymoon to mainly do some canyoneering. I have hotel reservations and time off work. We have both submitted lottery applications for the Subway and Mystery. Now that there is no walk up permits I am worried that we might not even get any canyons. I will do the last min. lottery and HOPE that we get something. I personally have no problem getting up super early getting down to the office and waiting.

My question is what happens in the example above of 8 people applying for a permit and say 4 of them get permits, but they only need one? How are they going to monitor who actually uses the permits? Are permits going to go unused because a person did not want to let NPS know that they are not going to use there last min permit? Is there going to be a pick up time for permits and if that person does not pick them up permit will they be released to the public?

Sure the line is a pain in the ass. At least if you show un in line early enough you would get your permit.

[Deathcricket]

My question is what happens in the example above of 8 people applying for a permit and say 4 of them get permits, but they only need one?

Ugh, another good point. One group could conceivably get all the permits for Subway, and it would be on the "honor system" for them to return unused seats back into the pool. And who wants to share the canyon with more groups and wait in line to rap or take pictures? And who wants to turn in a permit they paid cold hard cash for so Zions can just sell it again, why not just enjoy the canyon by yourself? There is pretty much zero motivation there IMO. Paying $100 for some starving college student to stand in line makes even more sense now that I think about it. Curious to see how this all works out this summer.

[Iceaxe]

I personally am not a fan of this new system from how I understand it now. I am planning on heading to Zion in June for my honeymoon to mainly do some canyoneering. I have hotel reservations and time off work. We have both submitted lottery applications for the Subway and Mystery. Now that there is no walk up permits I am worried that we might not even get any canyons.

You just don't understand the system.... there are normally plenty of permits for everything EXCEPT Subway and Mystery. You can obtain permits for May slots right now and I notice most dates are still open. Pine Creek, Keyhole, Orderville are completely open at the moment and we're 10 days into the permit period for those slots.

https://zionpermits.nps.gov/wilderness.cfm?TripTypeID=3

I believe permits for June will be excepted starting April 5th. Just sign up for what you want on that day and you should get just about everything you want.

Subway and Mystery are just a special beast that have way more wants than avaiable permits. There are also a bunch of great slots that don't require permits of any type. So.... hope for Subway and Mystery and have a back-up plan..... Birch, Fat man's, Yankee Doodle, Red Cave, Kanarra, Water, Boundary....

The system hasn't really changed.... other than you don't have to stand in line over night as the walk-ups are by lottery. If the old system would have been kept the walk-ups were still going to be changed to lottery to eliminate the overnight line problems.

Anyhoo... if you are on your honeymoon and would be happy to stand in line all night for a permit you are doing it WRONG!

[nieder81]

Yeah standing in line all night would be doing it wrong. Shane I will take you advice on that. Yeah I know that Subway and Mystery can be a crap shoot due to the high season. I am just worried that sooooo many people sign up for permits out of pure fear that even canyons like Pine Creek, Spry, Keyhole, act will be hard to get. We will see. It could be a great system or it could turn into a real nightmare.

[ratagonia]

Is there anything dishonorable about having every member of your group sign up for the lottery? Each person in the group has the same chance of winning in that case. The NPS doesn't have any message on their page discouraging this behavior - they only have a note saying that all of the money from your entry fee goes to Zion. By having each member of your group enter the lottery, you are giving more money to Zion that stays in Zion.

(The part about creating multiple accounts trying to get 2x entries per person - I will agree that is dishonorable.)

This system will not have much impact on me at all - (I moved a few thousand miles away) - but when I go back to Zion to visit I'll not be doing canyons that are the main trade routes anyway.

I'm just trying to point out that this system gets rid of one problem - the line - but trades it for a bunch of other less-visible problems.

A better, but slightly more complicated, implementation would involve you joining the lottery and submitting an ordered list of permits that you were trying to get for that weekend. This would mimic the old "wait in line, but if what I wanted wasn't around any more I'll take X instead" and only require one fee. They could automatically bill you for any permits that you were granted out of that list for the number of people in your group, and not give any refunds if you reduce your group size later. This wouldn't protect against a group that was the "subway-canyon-or-bust" group, but it would give other groups incentive to NOT all pig-pile on the list because the chance of multiple people in the group winning permits for the second, third, or forth canyons in the list would be too great. (Although perhaps they would still do this - and you'd get a lot of canyons with permits that go unused - which I will admit could be a bigger problem because then one group of assholes could be using up reservations they never actually intend to use)

The NPS implementation of that approach would be to basically shuffle up everyone who entered the lottery - and then go down in order trying to fill everyone's requests. (Simulate a single-file backcountry line that randomly picked who got to come up to the window next). If everything in your list was filled up, you would not get anything and you'd be done.

Even if they charged $5 for each canyon you put on your list of canyons you were trying to get access too (which I would not agree with, but it seems they are doing this for revenue reasons as much as they are for resource control reasons) - they'd still make a killing off of this and for the average person who would prefer a specific couple of canyons but has a few others they want to do as well, I think it would provide a better experience.

Maybe with all the money they will make this year from memorial day weekend alone with their current system they can afford to revamp it next year to be more user-friendly.

Certainly there are ways to "game the system". And since there are no rules against gaming the system (that we know of), it is perfectly legal to do so.

I have a hard time imagining a really tight set of rules that would make sense and be enforceable. And be worth the bother.

I think it is a personal choice of how far you will go to "game the system". Having some kid stand in for you at the all-night line, then switch out with them at 5 mins to 7am - that sounds like a reasonably fair "game". Having some kid stand in line, get the permit, then hand you the permit and not go on the trip - clearly illegal. Having him get the permit, then turn it back in 1/2 hour later with you next in line to claim the spaces - legal. (However, standing in line for money, in any form, is a commercial activity that requires a NPS permit. Technically illegal, in any form.)

Most people will not try to game the system, they will play it straight. The NPS designs their system around that assumption; the further assumption being that those people ready willing and able to game the system have a small effect on the overall system. If "gamers" appear to have a significant effect, then the NPS will move to build tighter rules. (In other words, please keep a low profile when you are gaming the system.) Personally I think tight rules are more of a problem than whatever impact some small percentage of gamers have on the system.

So again, the question is, "Have you no honor?"

You can/will set your own standard for what constitutes honor in this case. Personally, I will not game the system; but I have many advantages that most visitors do not have, so it is less of a problem for me. If I had my bestest friend from college coming out, and I really had to show them The Subway, yeah - I would probably game the system as much as possible.

RyeBrye Sorry to hear you are off in Kansas or something - hope you can make it back for a trip or two this summer.

[Iceaxe]

If you have a group of 8 people who want to get a subway permit - why would you not have all 8 people submit entries into the lottery system? Each of you pay your $5 and as long as no other group thinks of the same thing - you have 8x more of a chance of getting a permit than the other groups do.

We just did this... I'll let you know how it flies... It seems fair to me that everyone on the trip with a credit card and email account should have an equal shot at a lottery permit.

That didn't work.... zero for 6 on my recent attempt.

[canyoncaver]

That didn't work.... zero for 6 on my recent attempt.

So you are now out $30 and still permitless? That sucks. I'd rather stand in line for free...