[Awclist] [Fwd: RRFW Riverwire - GRAND CANYON LOTTERY TENTATIVELY SCHEDULED FOR AUGUST 21]

[Thomas Robey]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	RRFW Riverwire - GRAND CANYON LOTTERY TENTATIVELY SCHEDULED 
FOR AUGUST 21
Date: 	Sat, 29 Jul 2006 20:16:15 -0600
From: 	Riverwire <riverwire at rrfw.org>
Reply-To: 	<Riverwire at rrfw.org>
Organization: 	River Runners for Wilderness
To: 	<Riverwire at rrfw.org>



RRFW Riverwire – GRAND CANYON LOTTERY TENTATIVELY SCHEDULED FOR AUGUST 21

July 28, 2006

For the second time since permits have been required to raft the 
Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park, the National Park Service 
will be implementing a lottery for non-commercial river runners. The 
Park abandoned their last non-commercial permit lottery for river 
runners in the late 70s, citing widespread public discontent. The NPS 
initiated the permit waiting list in its stead. Grand Canyon officials 
are phasing out the waiting list and implementing the new weighted 
lottery hoping it will be more favorably received.

Park officials tentatively plan to conduct the lottery online and 
through fax and mail registrations from August 21 to August 29, 2006, 
offering a total of 200 river trips for the 2007 season. 153 of those 
dates are reserved for standard sized trips of up to16 participants, and 
48 for small trips of up to 8 participants. The 48 small trips will be 
available April, 2007 through August, 2007. 58 of the standard trips 
will be in the winter, for January, February, November and December 
2007. Twenty two standard trips will be available for March and April 
2007, and 34 standard trips will be available for the popular summer 
season of May through August 2007. In the fall, September and October 
2007, 38 standard trips will be available. A lottery will be held for 
every day a launch is available.

The upcoming lottery is open to anyone who wishes to apply whether one 
was on the waiting list or not. The river lottery is the third and final 
transition from the waiting list system to the lottery. In the first two 
transition stages, over 7,000 permit holders were offered 1,200 river 
trips. Those on the permit waiting list who were unsuccessful in the 
first two stages may apply for the lottery, or be refunded any deposit 
they may have paid. for January, February, November and December 2007.

Every applicant to the lottery will be charged $25, and if successful in 
obtaining a date, will be required to pay $400 as a deposit to secure 
the date for a standard trip. Each person on the trip will be charged 
$100. All fees paid will be forfeited to the NPS if the trip is 
cancelled, and all fees due must be received 90 days before the trip 
launches.

Participants in the lottery will acquire one additional point for every 
year they are unsuccessful in obtaining the date of their choice. 
Applicants who have a launch date already awarded in a year outside of 
the lottery year may apply to the lottery as well.

The Park plans to notify the public about the upcoming lottery through 
press releases in a couple of weeks. Those waiting list members who have 
failed to win a launch through Stages I and II have been notified by 
mail. Additional information, including specific open launch dates, is 
available on the Park’s website at 
http://www.nps.gov/grca/river/noncommercial-transition.htm.

While he expressed regret about the short notification time for the 
upcoming lottery, Park representative Steve Sullivan admitted, “If there 
is a smaller applicant pool, that just means those that apply will have 
better chances than they would have otherwise.”

Meanwhile, up river in the popular Desolation Grey section of the Green 
River, Bureau of Land Management planners have just abandoned their 
lottery system, in favor of a year round launch reservation system. The 
BLM made the transition after finding that the lottery was very costly 
and was responsible for a large amount of user dissatisfaction. Two 
years ago a calendar based reservation system was instituted at the 
BLM’s Westwater Canyon. The new system is simple and popular with 
noncommercial boaters, and officials have found it to be much easier to 
administrate than the lottery.

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