teapot57 wrote:I do think the lottery (which I am in favor of) adds to the number of applications being submitted. With the lottery, why not try to increase your chances by having each group member try for a desired route? So then you have one group potentially getting more than one reservation at the initial draw and another group missing out because of it. And further, I do wish there was more of an incentive for people to cancel their reservations if they won’t be used, so that others could pick up those cancellations.
Can't agree more and I was thinking the same. I'll be the first to say we are all lucky to be able to enjoy Glacier BC and the new system is a huge improvement over fax/mail and online first come first serve of the past.
That said, pure speculation (I apologize if this is not the case), but in this thread alone we have:
one person submit 4 applications who isn't planning on taking 4 trips
another whose party is backing out, questioning solo hiking - odds of no show vs cancel?
rangers created a permit for an 'anywhere' application to include back to back nights at MOL (one of the best sites with only 1 advanced reservation site per night)
That's all .... kindof shitty. I'm sure there are plenty more examples. The potential 8 week limbo (plus more if your permit got rejected and you can't formally view availability / submit new applications) makes it hard schedule vacation and transportation. It would be nice to be able to 'pick' the specific sites and dates real time, as it is hard to concisely capture what you want in the comments, and who knows how well they are taken into consideration.
Increasing the application cost isn't fair because it punishes everyone (I just completed the Milford and NZ doubled the cost to help availability). No-shows are nice if you have a permit, but suck if you are trying to get one. The only way I see that working is through a deposit, something extraordinarily high, to get a confirmed itinerary in advance, and then it is returned once you pickup the permit, that would curb a lot of the nonsense.
All that said, I'd take as-is in a heartbeat. I, like many others, am eagerly awaiting my application to be processed and tracking availability (only 1 start date left of my 4 explicit itineraries).