Wilderness Permits 2023

[ohioguy]

Lucky us.

1st hike FRA HOL BOU JAN

2nd hike 2 Nights POI

Was a little glitchey but worked out fine.

[orin]

Scott,

Thanks. If and when I see an opening at GAB or COS I will use your instructions to add it. Doing an addition should be less dangerous than deleting something that already exists and then adding something different back. In the meantime I am going to enjoy just having managed to reserve a reasonable trip.

Orin

[liketohike]

With some luck, I got KOO-KOO-FIF-GRN-MAN (in September).
Has anyone been to Porcupine lookout? ...Thought perhaps it might be a nice challenging day hike if staying at KOO for 2 nights.

Oh and in the vehicle section, I typed "no vehicle" in the two mandatory entry sections and it seemed to work.

[paul]

Orin,

If and when you do add another night to your permit, let us know how it goes. I would like to do the same thing but don't want to wreck what I already have I think you are right adding a day at the end is less risky because you won't have to mess with the sites already booked.

thanks,
Paul

[zozeppelin]

Glad to hear it sounds like success this year all around! I am curious as well how the modifications work.

Also thanks Scott and Steve for the feedback on my proposed itinerary - I ended up going with that.

[Ear Mountain]

...Has anyone been to Porcupine lookout? ...Thought perhaps it might be a nice challenging day hike if staying at KOO for 2 nights. ...

I know several people who have hiked to the Porcupine lookout. I believe the trail is periodically maintained and the lookout was restored and is used occasionally. Besides the elevation gain the greatest obstacle is crossing the Waterton River. There is no footbridge.

[zozeppelin]

A little late, but I've done a more thorough look at the 'dependency' grid by comparing to estimated distance (this would catch things that should be valid but weren't explicitly listed as a dependency, and vice versa).

I ended up bucketing it into 3 levels:

• Sections with dependency that were >= 17 miles (less restrictive, so a win)
• Sections without dependency that were < 17 miles (more restrictive, so an error)
• Sections without dependency that were < 18 miles (technically correct, but slight misses that would have been nice to have)

It is important to note, some distances aren't explicitly shown on the backcountry map - for instance GOA/WAT, HAW/FRA, OLD, HOL, where there clearly is a distance between but it's not called out on the map, as well as sites with long spurs not specifically called out (HOL, ELL, FRA, etc). So to that end, some slight differences should be expected, and I'll list the calculated mileage for point of reference (which may not be correct).

Wins

• None! (besides ROU-OTO, which was an error)

Losses

• LIN-ELL (the long way): 16.5
• SNY-CAM (this was dicey as there is a road section assumed at 5 miles: 16.3
• SNY-MCD (this was dicey as there is a road section assumed at 5 miles: 12.7
• SPE-MCD (this was dicey as there is a road section assumed at 5 miles: 15
• ELF-CRA: 16.6
• MAN-HEL (an error): 14.8
• FIF-GLF (technically correct?): 17.0
• GOA-GLF: 16.9
• WAT-GLF (could be over as it is slightly past GOA): 16.9
• MOJ-JAN: 16.8
• SLI-GAB (an error): 6
• BOU-KOO: 16.5
• KIN-BRO: 16.5
• UPK-JAN: 16.3
• REF-GUN: 16.8
• UPP-COA: 16.2

Near Misses

• FIF-HAW
• FLA-GOA
• FLA-WAT
• GRN-ELL (via lunch creek)
• GLH-JAN
• MAN-FLA (via loop / packers roost)
• JAN-MOL
• KOO-BOW
• LQU-BRO
• LQU-LOF
• UPK-BOW
• REH-GUN
• REH-OLD
• BEA-NON
• COB-OLC
• COA-UPN

I realize some of those are a bit preposterous based on terrain, but others not so much. One can really put on the miles in Waterton Valley, Belly River, along the lakes (Kintla, St Mary that I know, I'm sure others as well), etc. At any rate, no blatant additional errors beyond what was already found, just perhaps truncating at 16 miles instead of checking explicitly for less than 17.0.

[zozeppelin]

...Has anyone been to Porcupine lookout? ...Thought perhaps it might be a nice challenging day hike if staying at KOO for 2 nights. ...

I know several people who have hiked to the Porcupine lookout. I believe the trail is periodically maintained and the lookout was restored and is used occasionally. Besides the elevation gain the greatest obstacle is crossing the Waterton River. There is no footbridge.

I was also just reading about Jefferson Pass, it sounded like there once was a trail up Valentine Creek.

[liketohike]

...Has anyone been to Porcupine lookout? ...Thought perhaps it might be a nice challenging day hike if staying at KOO for 2 nights. ...

I know several people who have hiked to the Porcupine lookout. I believe the trail is periodically maintained and the lookout was restored and is used occasionally. Besides the elevation gain the greatest obstacle is crossing the Waterton River. There is no footbridge.

I was also just reading about Jefferson Pass, it sounded like there once was a trail up Valentine Creek.

Zozeppelin,
It is interesting to learn about the history and old trails.

Ear Mountain,
Thank you. I am aware of the creek crossing. Hopefully it will be fairly ok later in the season (September), weather permitting.

[Ear Mountain]

I was also just reading about Jefferson Pass, it sounded like there once was a trail up Valentine Creek.

I've been to Jefferson Pass and camped there but it was many years ago. There was a faint indication of that old trail along with evidence of an old camp right near the pass. Again that was 30 years ago or so. I know of one group that came up from Bowman Lake in the 1990s. They were trying to follow the old trail. Their comments were that it was really tough. My partner and I did not reach Jefferson Pass by trying to follow the old trail from the Waterton Valley or from the head of Bowman Lake.

For info on coming up from the Waterton Valley you might take a look at the book Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock.

[sbosecker]

Is the only way to check advance Backcountry Campsite availability through Recreation.gov?

I've been looking at my old bookmarked sites and, although there is a map of the campsites, if I click on one to see what is there it throws craps.

https://www.nps.gov/applications/glac/b ... bcmap.html

Scott

[zozeppelin]

Hi Scott, that is my suspicion, that anything relating to the old server won’t be supported moving forward.

That started last year with the new trail status application (interactive map).

The one I’m curious on is the RAD. That froze and was never updated since early last year.

Transitioning to Rex.gov for availability status I think is a good thing because it is real time* and better availability (no server issues). It remains to be seen how walkin is processed-presumably through the same system. The only question I would have is how do closures get communicated- such as winter, bear or fire - typically those would be designated with the walking calendar, as well as potential early openings.

That said, I’m sad to see the ‘old school’ trail status and closures text web pages go to the wayside. The interactive map is not user friendly (if wanting to look at an area, or get detailed information), nor smart phone friendly (hard to click on the trails). I wish they would just do a text dump up trail status to augment the app.

[paul]

It will be interesting to see what happens this year as far as cancellations and no-shows go. So far I have not noticed any sites opening up due to cancelled permits. I would think once the initial flux was over, some groups would have overbooked permits and would then cancel the ones that they didn't need. I hope this doesn't mean that will we see the same problem with no-shows as we saw last year.

[zozeppelin]

A nice article from the Flathead Beacon regarding the backcountry process. I really liked that they dug into the comments from the proposal (and came to the same conclusion most were opposed) as well as cited a study about demographic shifts with online reservations, and discussed ideas like increasing fees.

https://flatheadbeacon.com/2023/03/29/a ... nd-crunch/