Permit lotteries reward crews, not soloists
A solo entry into a 10% lottery stays a 10% shot. Get four friends to apply on their own accounts to that same lottery and your crew's combined odds jump to about 41%. A pool keeps every application, deadline, and result in one place, and if nobody wins, everyone already has a cancellation watch on the permit.
How lottery pools work
- 1
Each member submits their own lottery application
You start the pool and invite your crew. Everyone applies separately for the same permit and dates, on their own Recreation.gov (or state) account.
- 2
More applications means better collective odds
Every independent application is another shot. A crew of five applying to a 10% lottery has roughly a 41% chance that at least one of them wins.
- 3
Whoever wins hosts the crew
If anyone in the pool wins, the group coordinates to use that single permit together. PermitSnag tracks who applied and who won in one place.
The math
If everyone in a group applies independently at the same success rate, the chance that at least one person wins is 1 minus (1 minus the individual rate) raised to the group size. Here is what that looks like for groups of 2 to 8 people at three common lottery rates.
| Group size | At 5% solo odds | At 10% solo odds | At 20% solo odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 people | 10% | 19% | 36% |
| 3 people | 14% | 27% | 49% |
| 4 people | 19% | 34% | 59% |
| 5 people | 23% | 41% | 67% |
| 6 people | 26% | 47% | 74% |
| 7 people | 30% | 52% | 79% |
| 8 people | 34% | 57% | 83% |
Table values are computed, not measured — see real published lottery success rates (Half Dome, Mt. Whitney, the Enchantments, and more) on the lottery odds calculator, where you can plug in your own group size and permit.
Is applying as a group against permit lottery rules?
No. Each person applies under their own name and their own account, which is exactly how these lotteries are designed to work — agencies want more people applying, not fewer. What is not allowed is one person submitting duplicate applications under multiple names or fake accounts to game the odds. Every lottery publishes its own rules on group size and alternate-leader policies, so check the specific permit page before you apply.
What it costs
One of you runs the pool (Pro or a $29 alert). Everyone else joins free.
One organizer needs Pro ($7.99/mo) or a one-time $29 permit alert for that lottery. Everyone invited to the pool joins and applies for free.
Lost the lottery? Watch for cancellations
Winners cancel and miss payment deadlines all season, and those dates go straight back to the booking calendar. See the openings our scanner is catching right now.
Popular lottery permits
Yosemite
Half Dome lottery odds
The Half Dome preseason lottery awards about 22% of applications. The daily lottery, held two days before each hiking date, runs about 19% overall but roughly 22% on weekdays.
Yosemite
JMT Yosemite lottery odds
Yosemite publishes no success rate for the Donohue Pass trailheads (the John Muir Trail's Yosemite entry) — its wilderness lottery statistics are released only as charts. What the park does state is the release schedule: sixty percent of reservations open 24 weeks ahead, and the remaining forty percent one week ahead.
SEKI
Mt. Whitney Day lottery odds
Inyo National Forest runs one Mt. Whitney lottery a year, opening February 1 and closing March 1. The Forest Service publishes no success rate for it; what it does publish is the quota, which caps the trail at 100 people per day for day use and 60 per day for overnight.
Enchantments
Core Zone lottery odds
The Forest Service calls the Enchantments advance lottery highly competitive and puts it at typically less than 10% of applicants succeeding. The Core Zone is the hardest way in: only 24 people a day enter it, 16 of them through the advance lottery.
Vermilion Cliffs
The Wave lottery odds
BLM publishes no success rate for The Wave. What is fixed and published is the capacity: a daily maximum of 64 people, with 48 awarded through the advance lottery four months ahead and the other 16 through the geofenced Daily Lottery.
Zion
Angels Landing lottery odds
Angels Landing is the friendliest big-name lottery: NPS puts the overall odds across the pilot program's first two years at about 50%. The spread is enormous, from 8% on Memorial Day Weekend Sunday to 100% on random mid-week days.
Idaho Rivers
Middle Fork lottery odds
The Middle Fork of the Salmon is a sub-2% draw: nearly 20,000 people applied for 353 launch permits in the 2025 Four Rivers lottery, a 1.79% chance of winning.
Idaho Rivers
Main Salmon lottery odds
The Main Salmon River draw in the Four Rivers lottery runs about 1.7% — similarly long odds to its sister river, the Middle Fork of the Salmon.
Idaho Rivers
Selway lottery odds
The Selway is the longest-odds river draw in the Four Rivers lottery, with under 1% of applications winning a launch. It issues only one launch per day in the control season.
Colorado Rivers
Yampa lottery odds
The Yampa River lottery through Dinosaur National Monument is one of the toughest river draws in the West: 18,325 applied for 300 permits in 2022, about a 1.6% success rate — nearly 1 in 60.
Colorado Rivers
Desolation lottery odds
The Green River through Desolation and Gray Canyons draws roughly 11,000 applications a year for around 674 permits — about a 6% success rate, one of the more approachable BLM river draws in Utah.
Montana Rivers
Smith lottery odds
Montana's Smith River permit lottery drew 11,571 applicants for 995 float permits in the 2026 drawing, about an 8.6% overall success rate. The most popular launch date, June 15, ran far longer odds at 1.87%.
Colorado Rivers
GC Rafting lottery odds
The Grand Canyon noncommercial river permit weighted lottery is one of the toughest draws in the country: the 2025 Main Lottery had 8,043 valid applications competing for 482 available launch dates, about 6%. Your odds improve each year you apply and don't win.
Mt. Rainier
Wonderland lottery odds
Mount Rainier publishes no success rate for the Wonderland Trail early-access lottery. What the park does publish is the split: two thirds of wilderness permits are available for advance reservation, and the remaining third are issued first-come, first-served at ranger stations.
Lottery pool questions
How do group permit lottery applications improve odds?
Each person in your group submits their own application for the same permit and dates. If everyone has the same 10% chance of winning, the odds that at least one of five people wins work out to about 41%, using 1 minus (1 minus 0.10) to the power of 5. More applicants means more independent shots at the same permit.
What does a lottery pool cost?
One organizer needs Pro ($7.99/mo) or a $29 permit alert for that lottery. Everyone else invited to the pool joins free and applies on their own account.
What happens if nobody in the pool wins the lottery?
Lottery winners cancel or miss payment deadlines all season, and those dates go straight back to the booking calendar. Pool members already have a watch on the permit from joining, so PermitSnag keeps checking for cancellations after the lottery closes.