Well, so far it looks like it is working quite well. The half dome cables permit request period is 15 days in, and so far it seems like it is working as planned. As you may remember, in the past half dome was getting severely overcrowded on the cables and it was creating many safety issues. Last year, the Park attempted to implement a permit system that would limit the number of visitors to the cables to 400 total per day. The problem was that scalpers were able to purchase large quanitites of the permits then sell them off at a premium. The park service wanted to fix this problem, so in 2012 they have implemented a permit system much like Mt. Whitney's. There is a 30 day period to request permits, then the permits are allotted and applicants are notified of the results. So far it seems like both problems of the past are being solved; they will be able to limit the number of users of the cables to 400 per day, and the permits seem to be readily available and easy to acquire for those who have planned ahead. Nine days into the permit system, no single day has sold out yet. It seems like barring something unusual happening, the majority of people will get their first or second choice of dates.

Here are some charts showing the requests per day of the week, plus the number of permits requested for everyday of the permit season.

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


My wife and I requested July 6th or July 5th, and were very worried about being able to land a permit for the week of July 4th, however, this chart shows that the results look favorable.

Working how?

Safety? There were plenty of incidents on HD last year. Since people can't simply come back the following day/week, they're less willing to turn around in inclement weather.

Scalpers? It's only been 9 days; I'm not sure I see this as evidence of anything.

Flexibility? Crowding was always an issue on weekends and holidays. The NPS has also had a long history of reserving permits for day of / day before in-person registration. Willing to get up at 5AM on a Tue and bomb up HD when no one else is around? Tough shit. In the park and trying to get a day-of permit? Keep dropping $4.50 into your computer every day.

The HD permit system is a farce that can't even decide whether it's about safety or preserving the wilderness character of a metal ladder drilled into the side of a rock.

Care to place "working" into empirical terms? That is how administration does it.

To make assertions such as something is working so early on, that is to say without an adequate sample size or quantitative goals outlined (aside from 400 people per day, that "worked" even with scalping), would be premature at best.

mattj makes a point about the preservation of 'wilderness character' of a metal ladder. It makes me sick to see that there is very real danger to climbing access as it relates to fixed anchors (rappel or anchors for ascent) in wilderness, yet these things exist without a true threat to them being removed. Not saying that they should be, necessarily, however, the jeopardizing of access is not equitable across modes of recreation.

mattyj wrote:Working how?



The HD permit system is a farce that can't even decide whether it's about safety or preserving the wilderness character of a metal ladder drilled into the side of a rock.

I don't see the permit system at fault for people being unwilling to turn around. I think people (who aren't from the area) set stiff plans to accomplish x amount of things with their time in the park. They get up Half Dome as the weather is failing and the reason they don't want to wait and come back another day isn't because of a permit, it is because they don't want to shell out another $500 to fly back to Cali to go to the park. The human mentality is to cram as much in as quickly as possible without having to revisit any unaccomplished tasks later. I think if anything the permit system limits the number of stupid people on the calbes to minimize the number of injuries or deaths. I only see the humans to blame for being so bullheaded. Look at the people who died in the waterfall last year, or the guy who got outside the cables and was trying to "shimmy" his way down the side of the route to retrieve a part of his camera he dropped. People being people is the only thing to blame for the number of accidents.

As for the scalpers, last year all the permits for Fridays and Saturdays were sold out within an hour. This year you can only request a limited amount of tickets per application. And they use recreation.gov which is designed to stop automated purchasing programs. Also, permits are non-transferrable, which takes care of scalping.

They still issue day of permits. If that's not good enough for you, climb one of the other routes that doesn't require a permit. Remember they aren't infringing on your right to access Half Dome, just one route of it, the route that they "built" and are therefore liable to maintain.

As for their motivation, I don't know what true intentions are, and quite frankly I have enough in life to worry about.

Obviously people are ultimately at fault for their own decisions, not the NPS. But HD saw huge weekend crowds because of people who live in California, not people who fly in and can go midweek. The NPS implemented the permit system after a particularly bad year, under the name of safety. Obviously fewer people mean fewer injuries, but what matters is the injury rate, and the idea was that eliminating the clusterf*ck that occurs on crowded weekends would cut that rate. I supported their weekend quota system, but it's far from clear that the current 24/7 approach is actually improving safety.

Somehow, this morphed into a "wilderness character" issue as well. If you go read their long term plan, this has nothing to do with vegetation or wildlife or other environmental issues; it's all about keeping the trail uncrowded so that those who do have permits can enjoy it more. Their number one "need" for the quota system is summarized as:

Crowding along the Trail and the summit adversely impacts wilderness character of the area by compromising visitors’ opportunities for solitude.

You may not give a rat's ass as long as you can fly in and hike it, and I don't begrudge you for feeling that way, but it's a serious access issue that impacts local users. In another 20 or 30 years, how many more places in the Sierra will undergo heavy-handed quotes in the name of visitor solitude? What objective criteria are they using that makes HD more critical than the other crowded valley trails?

Remember they aren't infringing on your right to access Half Dome, just one route of it, the route that they "built" and are therefore liable to maintain.

Don't forget that "they" work for us, although "they" (typically supervisors and not the line-level employees) sometimes like to forget that fact. If they want to whip up some half-assed policy with a very poorly defined set of goals and measurable objectives, we're well within our right to complain.

mattyj wrote:Somehow, this morphed into a "wilderness character" issue as well. If you go read their long term plan, this has nothing to do with vegetation or wildlife or other environmental issues; it's all about keeping the trail uncrowded so that those who do have permits can enjoy it more.

I agree with you there, it does seem to be in the name of making the hike more comfortable or safer for those who do get permits. I don't think it's a wilderness character issue at all. I will say this though, if I were the director of the NPS I wouldn't want over 400 people up there at one time either. The NPS is liable for the cables, not for the route, not for human decision, but for the safety and integrity of the cables. If one day 500 people were on the cables at one time and they broke loose and it resulted in serious injuries or fatalities (which it would), I guarantee you the NPS would be sued for everything the families could get out of it (and they should) and anyone involved in the planning/decision making process would be out of a career. You can't put something like that in place without putting limits on its use to maintain the structural integrity/safety of the cables themselves. I believe the right thing to do here is either have a permit system in places such as they do now (obviously working better than last years permit system) or take the cables down all together. I think a free for all on the cables is a horrendous idea and I don't like the sound of paying a scalper $40 for a permit either. Maybe they should consider having the Ranger at the base of the subdome allow qualified CA and NV residents (in excess of the 400 permitted hikers) with appropriate gear to ascend the route outside of the cables.

It's very much not the NPS way to discriminate based on being "local" or not, and I don't feel that we need an exemption for CA residents. What we do need is for the NPS to identify the actual safety or environmental issues involved and come up with a plan that mitigates them while preserving public access to the greatest degree possible. Their current system seems to do neither, but instead substitutes a bunch of vague after-the-fact justification and wraps it up in a poorly implemented quota process.

If their new reservation system actually does cut down on resellers (and maybe we'll find out in another 20 days), that is at least a big step in the right direction. I'm happy for you if you get to hike HD as part of your trip and don't mean to rain on your enthusiasm, but a title like "Half Dome Permit System Working" is a little controversial round here.

mattyj wrote: a title like "Half Dome Permit System Working" is a little controversial round here.

Sorry, maybe I should retitle it. What I meant by working, is that it is accomplishing the two goals that it is designed to do; (1) limiting the number of hikers on the cables to 400 per day and (2) reducing or better yet eliminating the scalping of permits.

I did not mean that it is solving the issue (whatever it may be) that has lead them to limiting access to the cables, as I for one have no idea what that issue is. So in conclusion it is operating as it has been designed to operate, not necessarily alleviating whatever problem it was intended to fix.

I just want to emphasize: I am for everything good, and against everything bad.

MoapaPk wrote:I just want to emphasize: I am for everything good, and against everything bad.

I want to join that movement. It sounds promising.