Scoring high demand permits/campsites

[Ben H.]

I’m not sure how much experience people around here will have with this because back-country permits are typically not in as high of demand as a few campsites I’ve tried for lately, but I thought I would ask:  Does anyone have any advice for booking permits/campsites in high demand?  Pre-planning and trying to book when the sites go live are good advice, but more and more often I’m finding that isn’t enough.  I am talking about entire campgrounds getting booked in micro-seconds of the sites being offered.  Last year, we had multiple people clicking “book” right at 7 AM at the opening of the window for the Sawtooth National Forest for the eclipse.  Multiple people, multiple days, time.gov used to time the click and nothing to show for it.  In the past I’ve tried for Julia Pfieffer  Burns State Park Campground (two sites next to a waterfall) and haven’t been able to score anything.  Right now, I am trying to score Kirby Cove Campground (5 sites at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge).  Again, multiple people, multiple days all clicking right exactly at 7 AM and ending up with nothing.  I understand these are all extremely high demand conditions, but it has happened enough that I feel like I am either doing something wrong or I am being beaten by a computer.  I have searched around but have not been able to find anybody suggesting they can use a computer to time the submissions and increase the odds of getting what you want.  With the eclipse, I was expecting to be able to find somebody trying to sell the campsites received through ill gotten means but couldn’t find anything.  What are your thoughts/experiences?  Am I starting to sound like a rambling conspiracy theorist?

[David Thomas]

I’ve wondered if people are getting beaten by a computer.  If I can imagine an app, presumably someone has written it already.

We met some parties on New Zealand tramps that were online, at 8 am NZT, just like we were, but got their second choice.  They tended to be larger groups, so maybe they had more typing to do.  I was on one computer typing in a permit application for one track while my wife was on hers completing another.  We got both, but it was apparently good that we typed quickly.

If you are competing against humans (versus bots), then have everything in front of you, maybe have gone through the process (short of paying) for other permits on the same website so you know the routine, and, if you’re allowed to change a reservation later, enter yourself, hit “go” and edit it later to add the rest of the party.

And rename your children from Alexander and Suzanne to Al and Su so you can enter them faster.

For some high demand public-use Forest-Service cabins up here in Alaska if you want, say, Fr-Sa-Sun nights, June 20-21-22, for which you can apply starting on December 20, one trick is to pay for an extra night, and book June 19-20-21-22 on December 19th.

[Ben H.]

Here is evidence that these bots do exist:

https://busy.org/@dhimmel/introducing-the-hackjohn-bot-for-southbound-john-muir-trail-permits

[Bruce Tolley]

Yup. I was just going to post a link to hackjohn.

If folks in California start using bots, then we will all need to move to Alaska and use David to help us find campsites.

Introducing the hackjohn bot for southbound John Muir Trail permits from Ultralight

[John S.]

Sometimes..outfitters get first shot

[Author]

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