Yosemite:Half Dome Hiking Permits Sell Like Hot Cakes

YOSEMITE: HALF DOME HIKING PERMITS SELL LIKE HOT CAKES

Christopher Reynolds

LATimes.com

March 2, 2010

Warning, weekend hikers: If you’re planning an assault on Half Dome in May or June, your time has just about run out.

In their first 48 hours of peddling hiker permits, under a new system designed to relieve weekend and holiday crowding on Yosemite National Park’s popular Half Dome Trail, park concessionaires have sold nearly all of the 5,700 available spots. Permits went up for grabs Monday morning. As of 3:19 p.m. Tuesday, park spokesman Scott Gediman said, just 69 were left, all of them earmarked for Memorial Day, May 31.

The permits carry a processing fee of $1.50 each. Park officials turned to this temporary system after four deaths in four years near the top of the trail, where summer hikers use a pair of cables on stanchions to steady themselves for the final 400 feet of ascent on the granite.

The new system limits foot traffic on the Half Dome Trail to 300 day-hikers and 100 backpackers per day on summer weekends and holidays, which means that if you didn’t score a permit on Monday or today, you’re probably not going to be day-hiking that trail on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or holiday between Friday, May 21 (when rangers open the hiking season by raising the cables onto the stanchions), and Sunday, June 27.

But you’ll soon get a shot at permits for July and August. On April 1, park officials will release another batch of permits, covering the Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from July 1 through Aug. 31. The last batch of permits, covering September and about half of October (depending on weather) will go up for grabs May 1.

“It’s what we expected,” said Gediman of the Monday rush on permits. “Saturdays went first. Then Fridays. Then Sundays.”

Weekday hikers are still free to climb without permits, as are technical rock-climbers, so long as they first summit Half Dome by other means and then descend using the cables.

In the first 12 minutes after permits went on sale at 7 a.m. Monday, Gediman said, concessionaires sold 901 on the Web and 13 by phone. By 7:24 a.m. that day, all Saturdays were sold out and total sales were nearing 1,097. By 8:24 a.m., 16 of the 19 potential hiking dates were sold out. By Tuesday afternoon, only those 69 permits on Memorial Day Monday remained. A sales report shows that 94% of the bookings came through the Web and just 6% over the phone.

Hikers must reserve permits at least one week in advance, either through the National Recreation Reservation Service at (877) 444-6777 or online. Day hikers get one type of permit; backpackers will receive a Half Dome permit with their wilderness permit if their wilderness itinerary includes Half Dome.

No same-day permits or day-before permits will be issued in the park. The limit is four hiker passes per phone call or website visit. Though transfer of a permit from one would-be hiker to another is allowed, resale of permits is forbidden.

The misdemeanor penalty for defying the new requirement is up to $5,000 fine and/or six months in jail. Also, the permits are nonrefundable, so if stormy weather forces closure of the trail, that day’s hikers won’t be able to get a “rain check.”

Half Dome, which looms 8,842 feet above sea level and more than 4,500 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor, may be California’s most familiar mountain feature. Though early accounts called it “perfectly inaccessible,” climber George Anderson conquered it in 1875 by drilling holes in the granite and placing bolts in them.

In 1919, the Sierra Club placed cables near the top, making the summit more accessible for casual hikers. In fact, it lures hikers of all stripes uphill in the same way that the Grand Canyon’s demanding Bright Angel Trail beckons them downhill, which can result in crowded conditions and some unfit hikers trying to undertake the task.

The Half Dome Trail, a 17-mile round trip, gains 4,400 feet in elevation from the valley floor. Hikers typically take 10-12 hours to complete it.