The reason for selecting a group size is because you will pay all of the permit costs up front through the checkout process. There is a $10 permit fee, plus $7 per day per person in your group.Select a group size is redundant. The system is limiting to 1 site per reservation, such that the number of people is irrelevant until later, it's going to be 1 to 4, and it's winner take all on the site.
Speaking for myself, the complaint isn’t the change to Rec.gov- it is the removal of the lottery system. Cascades and Yellowstone both use rec.gov and have a lottery system, that is a fail on Glacier's part. I’m sure they’ll clean it up next year, but just a poor implementation this year - I expect a cluster and think there will be errors.ohioguy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 4:33 pm It will be a mess but, when speaking to the rangers in the past the lottery was getting to labor intensive for them. IMO its everyone's fault for telling to many people how beautiful the back country is.
The first 6 back country hikes I put in for I got, so I thought it would be easy.
Always got the walk in permits we wanted, things have changed.
Well if you don't get the hikes you want there is always the coal creek area.
And the Two Medicine area is very under-rated.
Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see a need to select the number in the group until the online payment process - at least for Glacier NP.teapot57 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:29 pmThe reason for selecting a group size is because you will pay all of the permit costs up front through the checkout process. There is a $10 permit fee, plus $7 per day per person in your group...Select a group size is redundant. The system is limiting to 1 site per reservation, such that the number of people is irrelevant until later, it's going to be 1 to 4, and it's winner take all on the site.
I don't like the excuse that the rangers were bogged down with the manually processing of permits. They certainly could have created a program to automate processing of permits. It wouldn't be done by the rangers, but by a tech contractor under their direction.zozeppelin wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:58 pmSpeaking for myself, the complaint isn’t the change to Rec.gov- it is the removal of the lottery system. Cascades and Yellowstone both use rec.gov and have a lottery system, that is a fail on Glacier's part. I’m sure they’ll clean it up next year, but just a poor implementation this year - I expect a cluster and think there will be errors.ohioguy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 4:33 pm It will be a mess but, when speaking to the rangers in the past the lottery was getting to labor intensive for them. IMO its everyone's fault for telling to many people how beautiful the back country is.
The first 6 back country hikes I put in for I got, so I thought it would be easy.
Always got the walk in permits we wanted, things have changed.
Well if you don't get the hikes you want there is always the coal creek area.
And the Two Medicine area is very under-rated.
One other option was to keep the pay.gov lottery system and write a program to automatically process the applications. But alas, these are rangers and bureaucrats, not IT folk.
I plan to put in the group size of one, and if I add people I will do it when I pick up my permit. There's no point to putting in more than one for regular permits unless you are sure that other people are joining you.sbosecker wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 11:21 pmMaybe I'm missing something but I don't see a need to select the number in the group until the online payment process - at least for Glacier NP.teapot57 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:29 pmThe reason for selecting a group size is because you will pay all of the permit costs up front through the checkout process. There is a $10 permit fee, plus $7 per day per person in your group...Select a group size is redundant. The system is limiting to 1 site per reservation, such that the number of people is irrelevant until later, it's going to be 1 to 4, and it's winner take all on the site.
My guess is that the "number in the group" is entered immediately after the "Start Date" because that's the way the templete was set up initially.
Perhaps this setup was necessary for another Park's situation but it unnecessarily slows down a frantic backpacker trying to select an itinerary at Glacier.
Best regards,
Scott
Congrats on the permit score!teapot57 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:29 pm
Because I was fortunate enough to get a mid size group permit. I paid a total of $272 for a permit for 6 for 6 nights ($10 permit fee times 2 for the 2 tent pads, plus $42 per person per night).
I got my second choice itinerary- GAB HEL ELF GLH GLH COS in mid-July.
Just wondering how did you reserve Helen Lake for your group permit? I thought only one site was reserveable at Helen lake for advanced reservations. There are only two sites at Helen so you will have reserved them 100% in advance for that day.teapot57 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:29 pm
Because I was fortunate enough to get a mid size group permit. I paid a total of $272 for a permit for 6 for 6 nights ($10 permit fee times 2 for the 2 tent pads, plus $42 per person per night).
I got my second choice itinerary- GAB HEL ELF GLH GLH COS in mid-July.
zozeppelin,zozeppelin wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 7:08 am Hi Scott, it is in the page where the date and site availability grid shows up- but only if you select a “starting area” and number of people.
Your point is my point - one more thing to have to do in a scramble (that isn’t pertinent)...
This is my plan as well, because it shouldn’t matter - it’s like reserving hotel rooms, as long as you’re under the occupancy limit who cares (pay the fee at checkin if applicable)? Conversely I would always put in 4 with previous applications, because again who knows and who cares, it’ll all be sorted when picking up the permit and I don’t want to have to deal with ‘well you only have 2 in the application but brought 4’. Unfortunately the form defaults to none so you have to pick/click something.