Half Dome Day Use Permits

For example, visitors have had to wait up to an hour to ascend the cables on a busy day.

The permits are free, however, there is a non-refundable $1.50 service charge for each permit obtained.

Put up a third cable and have an up lane and a down lane. Problem solved for many years to come.

They have been quietly erasing routes already, it hasn't been a slippery slope has it? Sierra point, the ledge trail and so on...

Probably cost more to post a guard, checking permits, then to add another cable to make two lanes for up and down hikers.

Day Use Permits to Address Visitor Safety Program

Approximately 84,000 people climbed to the top of Half Dome in 2008.

I probably should have spelled this out earlier, but Wilderness Permits in Yosemite are still free.

On your way down from sending the RNWFR in your record beating time, say hello to the Ranger, and ask him how the summer has been

We have already been sued twice in the past ten years for not addressing user capacity issues in regards to the Merced Wild and Scenic River. These are your fellow Americans asking us through litigation to reduce the amount of use to the Parks.

We get 4 million visitors here a year

I wonder how many permits are going to go unused. You get it in advance. You get sick, or you overwork yourself the day before and decide not to hike it. Kind of like the problems we have with empty campsites. Many people don't bother canceling because it is a bigger chore to cancel then the refund is worth.

If not, I suppose there are basically two choices: somehow increase access or take the cables down.

Also, sandblast the surface to restore the original friction/texture.
It has gotten too polished from traffic over the years.
The slippery surface slows down the less capable folks and creates the congestion, and the risk/slipping problem.

We have already been sued twice in the past ten years for not addressing user capacity issues in regards to the Merced Wild and Scenic River. These are your fellow Americans asking us through litigation to reduce the amount of use to the Parks.

First-Come, First-Served Permits
Permits are also available at any permit issuing station starting one day prior to the beginning of your hike. All wilderness permits must be picked up in person by a member of the hiking group. Priority for permits for a particular trailhead is given to the closest permit issuing station, though it is possible to obtain a permit for any trailhead at any permit issuing station. This mainly affects the most popular trailheads that fill up quickly each morning, such as Little Yosemite Valley trailheads, Lyell Canyon, Cathedral Lakes, among others.

Charging use fees may mean the land manager is no longer protected from liability by the California Recreational Use Statute.

If the permit check is at the trail head in the valley, how does that impact folks going to do snake dike ? Or folks whom have no interest in hiking the cables but wish to make it to the shoulder ?

To reduce the potential, all else remaining the same, I'd argue that the total # allowed on the summit would have to be down to a few dozen. That reduction isn't going to happen.

"If one person were to fall off the top on a busy day, there could be a mass casualty incident. It is a very steep trail. The cables are very steep, it's exposed. The longer you are on it the more tired you get, the more stress there is and the more chance you have of inclement weather rolling in."

What's more, it's not true that young and hale means safe. Go up to those cables and watch Charles Atlas death gripping those cables while Fatty Calhoon scampers by like it's nothing.

I'd much prefer to see those crowds swamping the Valley, turning the main trails into ant lines (or doing the same at Whitney), than to see them spread out in adjacent areas. I'm fine with having designated sacrifice zones to buffer the surround. The Valley in season is already an urban experience....If we want to have a functional NPS system, we need to have broad political support, especially from the new demographics that now make up the San Joaquin Valley.