A hack for the JMT permit process

We loved this story in the San Jose Mercury News about a computer whiz who is also a backpacker, and needed to figure out a way to get his permit for the John Muir Trail. So what did he do?

Yep, he designed a bot! The full story is here:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/22/heres-how-to-get-a-reservation-to-hike-the-john-muir-trail/

Or, if you are talented in this direction, here is a link to his code:

The source code for hackjohn is available at https://github.com/dhimmel/hackjohn under the permissive MIT License. To learn more, go to https://busy.org/@dhimmel/introducing-the-hackjohn-bot-for-southbound-john-muir-trail-permits.

To learn more about the John Muir Trail, or to submit an application to the National Park Service’s lottery, go to https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/jmtfaq.htm.

I've been noticing it is harder and harder to get key permits and suspected something like this was the cause. This is the first I've seen it admitted to publicly.

I think it is unfortunate that people are using technology to block others from getting a fair shot at reservations to public places. It is clear to me, that a lottery system needs to be instituted so everyone has the same chance.

The other thing the article doesn't talk about is resale of these highly valued permits.

Another thing is that there is no attempt to exclude those who have recently been successful from getting a new permit so that the previously unsuccessful can have a turn.

I see this happening with permits to Washington's Enchantment Lakes area--some get permits year after year while others go for many years without success.

This doesn't affect me because I never have felt up to the strenuous effort required to get there, but I feel sorry for those who try year after year unsuccessfully.

Note that this story is NOT about trying to get one of the original permit spots when they are first released. He repeatedly failed at that. And so instead, he created a bot that would check back frequently to see if any of those original permits had been turned back in, thus opening up a slot.

I don't know how the permits are granted on that first day of availability. Some parks use a lottery system, others are first come, first served.

That said, we've always been able to a get permit for what we want to do by walking up the day before. But there are only two of us, and we usually avoid the most popular trails.