How does the Half Dome daily lottery work if you missed the March preseason lottery?

The daily lottery accepts applications two days before each hiking date, and it distributes around 50 permits per day drawn from the daily allotment plus any cancellations that came back into the pool. You apply on Recreation.gov for a specific date, results come back quickly, and if you win you hike two days later.

Odds in the daily lottery averaged about 19 percent in 2024 across 35,561 applications. The weekday versus weekend gap is the single biggest lever you control: roughly 22 percent on weekdays against about 14 percent on weekends in 2024, and an even wider 23 versus 12 percent split in 2023. A flexible midweek plan beats a locked-in Saturday nearly two to one.

A few mechanics worth knowing. Group size is capped at six people per permit, so larger crews need multiple winning applications. The cables are typically up from late May to mid-October, and the daily lottery only runs while they are. And because preseason winners cancel all season long, those permits return to the pool. Watching for those re-releases on the dates you care about is a quiet but real third path, separate from both lotteries.