[Awclist] [Fwd: RRFW Riverwire - Lottery Awards 194 Permits From 2304 Applicants]

[Thomas Robey]

RRFW Riverwire – Lottery Awards 194 Permits From 2304 Applicants

June 3, 2007

Grand Canyon National Park has completed the Main Permit Lottery for the 
2008 river rafting year. This year’s Main Lottery ran from May 1st 
through noon on May 28, 2007.

This year’s lottery had 2304 applications for 213 available permits. 
According to the National Park Service, 194 permits were awarded to 
lucky lottery winners. In 2006, the Grand Canyon Lottery had 2,534 
applicants for 197 available dates.

Applicants had an average one-in-eleven chance of winning the lottery, 
while concessions passengers can still book open seats on their choice 
of dates for river trips in either 2007 or 2008.

While park planners had originally estimated 7,000 river runners would 
apply for the lottery each year based on other river lotteries around 
the country, the Grand Canyon lottery is unlike any other river lottery 
in the country.

Other river lotteries allow applications by mail, e-mail or fax on a 
simple one page application. In the Grand Canyon lottery, potential 
applicants must navigate through two dozen pages of online web-based 
application forms, and pay a $25 per application fee. The park netted 
$57,600 on application fees during the lottery.

The park has notified the winners of the lottery that they must submit a 
$400 trip deposit within the next two weeks. This will net the park an 
additional $77,600. Throughout the year, based on lottery fees and the 
$100 per person fee, the park may collect over $762,000 in fees yearly 
from an estimated 7,000 self guided river runners.

This year’s lottery, like last year’s, was fraught with computer 
troubles. Computer users using the latest Microsoft software had 
difficulty finding the pop-up launch calendar window. Some individuals 
were unable to log in, links on the NPS web site were broken, and others 
were instructed to pay twice.

River Runners for Wilderness helped lottery applicants from around the 
world sort through the complex lottery system. RRFW offered assistance 
with a website tutorial, through e-mail and a telephone call-in hotline 
program.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RIVERWIRE is a free service to the community of river lovers from River 
Runners for Wilderness. To join, send an e-mail address to 
riverwire at rrfw.org <mailto:riverwire at rrfw.org> and we'll add it to the 
RRFW RIVERWIRE e-mail alerts list. Join RRFW’s listserver to stay 
abreast of and participate in the latest river issues. It’s as easy as 
sending a blank e-mail to Rafting_Grand_Canyon-subscribe at yahoogroups.com 
<mailto:Rafting_Grand_Canyon-subscribe at yahoogroups.com>. Check out our 
new items and donate at RRFW Store <http://www.rrfw.org/store.php>! RRFW 
is a project of Living Rivers. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~