What shenanigans? The popular spots really are popular, which is why nearly everything will be booked to most interested visitors. Are you just suggesting that there shouldn’t be online reservations at all?
Okay, I guess I was confused about how people buy tickets to concerts online. I've always just...gone to the official ticket website and purchased the ticket. I've certainly never created a bot.
Perhaps not in seconds, but certainly minutes or hours or the first day. But that's still not the point I'm making. If bots are a significant reason that something is selling out within seconds, then changing the system from first-come-first-serve to a lottery will probably not significantly increase your chances as a human of getting a ticket (because whoever runs the bots can make essentially as many bots as they want).
If you want a campsite in a major national park you need to look up when they are released (normally 3mo in advance) and wake up at exactly 6:59am and get your trigger finger ready or you really don't stand a chance.
I just wish there was a "calmer" way. The experience of exploring our national parks should be an escape from our hectic every day lives. That begins with getting a place to sleep.
Believe me, I feel the same way. I've spent a great deal of time at campsites and trails that are extremely popular and difficult to get permits (like Yosemite). But that's not really a technical problem: it's an inevitable problem when you have vastly more demand and a small finite supply.
What I was pointing out is that a lottery does not on its own help with bots. Bots are good at making reservations very quickly at a specific time of day (in reservation systems that are first-come-first-serve), but bots can also easily be scaled up in number to sign up for an arbitrarily large number of slots in a lottery.
> The experience of exploring our national parks should be an escape from our hectic every day lives.
I totally agree, and it bums me out too. I have visited Yosemite several times per year for the last 6 or so years, and it's only gotten more and more popular. I rarely visit the valley any more, because it's such a madhouse. Even in the last few years I've seen demand go through the roof even for relatively difficult wildnerness backpacking trails. But the fact of the matter remains: way more people want to go than there is capacity for, and I'm sure they all want an easier calmer way to get reservations.
Some of the demand is induced by how easy it is to get the reservations. I hate to say this but maybe we should make it a little more annoying?
Imagine if campsites were either:
a) first-come first-served
b) reservation by physical mail only
I guarantee you'd see different levels of "demand" than we do now.
Interestingly I noticed that Yosemite backcountry permits still require mail or fax, but they email you the result. I think this is intentional, putting a small hoop to make sure they get "serious" inquiries only.
I say all of this out of defeat. On principle I would want to remove any and all barriers to visiting our national parks. But in practice what we have is not really working for anyone (at Yosemite and the other mega parks)
I don't know, I mean sure, it might be self-serving for me to want to discourage other people from going to Yosemite, but realistically isn't the point of the national parks to preserve them for people to enjoy? I don't think it's a great mission to say "we only want die-hard fans of the outdoors to be willing to go through the reservation process." Part of the point is outreach to people who aren't normally connected to or interested in the outdoors.
> But in practice what we have is not really working for anyone (at Yosemite and the other mega parks)
I'm not sure that's true. Tons and tons of people go there. It's not like it's so crowded that no one goes there any more (like the classic joke).
