How returned permits come back into the quota

A quota is a fixed count of people or parties per day. Once it is awarded, the only space that appears later is space someone gave back. There are four ways that happens.

1. Lottery winners who never claim

A lottery award is an offer with a deadline. Miss the deadline and the offer lapses.

• Yosemite wilderness: winners must accept and pay by Thursday at 11:59 pm Pacific. Space left after each weekly lottery is released first-come, first-served on Friday at 9 am Pacific.
• Mount Whitney: winners must claim and pay by April 21. Unclaimed dates open for reservation on April 22.

These are the only returns that arrive on a known date. Put them on a calendar.

2. Cancellations

A holder cancels and the quota goes back. For Yosemite, Recreation.gov says cancelled quota "will be released and made available to others," and the park says later cancellations become available immediately.

The other agencies do not publish a release time. What they do publish is a refund rule, and the refund rule shapes when people bother to cancel.

3. Smaller parties and moved dates

Where a quota counts people, a party that drops from six to four frees two places. Whitney lets a leader reduce group size online. Whitney also allows an entry-date change 12 or more days out if the new date has quota, which vacates the old date. At Desolation, changing the entry date means cancelling and booking again.

4. No-shows

Some permits are cancelled automatically when the holder skips a step.

• Mount Whitney: unprinted day-use permits are cancelled at noon the day before entry. Unprinted overnight permits are cancelled at 10 am on the entry date.
• Yosemite wilderness: a permit not picked up by 11 am on the entry day is cancelled unless it was held for late arrival.

This space appears hours before the trip, or not online at all. Yosemite hands out unreserved permits in person, on the start date only. No-show space mostly helps people who are already in the area.

Where the space reappears

Reading the refund cutoffs

This part is inference, not an agency statement.

A holder who knows the trip is off has a reason to cancel before the refund cutoff and little reason after it. For the Enchantments that points to the stretch before 22 days out. For Desolation it points to the stretch before 8 days out. Yosemite and Whitney refund nothing, so there is no such deadline and cancellations can land at any time, or never.

Treat this as a guide to when watching is most worthwhile. It is not a release schedule.

What an alert can and cannot do

An alert checks the permit calendar on a repeating interval and messages you when it sees space matching your entry point or zone, dates and party size. OpenCampsite's free plan checks about every 10 minutes.

It cannot:

• hold or reserve the space;
• enter a lottery, including Half Dome's daily lottery or the Enchantments' on-site daily lottery;
• see space that is only handed out in person;
• promise the space is still there when you open the page.

Have this ready

• A Recreation.gov account, signed in, with payment details current.
• The exact entry point or zone for your route, and a second choice only if the second choice is a trip you would take.
• A party size you can commit to. Core Enchantment and Whitney count every person.
• The permit's pickup or printing rule, so a caught permit is not lost at the last step.