Questions & Answers
Get help from the community on permits, lotteries, and wilderness regulations.
Get help from the community on permits, lotteries, and wilderness regulations.
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A Half Dome permit is tied to a specific calendar date, so hikers sometimes wonder whether to push through if a storm is in the forecast or wait it out another time. The National Park Service has a clear answer on this, based on the risks of the cable section.
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Yosemite installs and removes the Half Dome cables each year on a set schedule, and hikers with a permit dated right at the edge of that schedule often wonder whether they will actually get to use the cables or arrive just after they are taken down.
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Plenty of hikers only start planning after the preseason window closes at the end of March. The daily lottery is the main remaining path to the cables.
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A common planning question before the March application window: how likely is a Half Dome preseason lottery entry to actually win, and do the published odds hold up?