Hi, it's William from Bear Box and I'm in a hammock on top of Mt. Wilson. This summer we'll be backpacking in Yosemite National Park for the first time. So I'm going to briefly go over how we got our permit and we're going to show you guys how you can do that too. If you look at the map, you'll see how huge Yosemite National Park is and how few places you can actually experience just by car. Because the road, there's one road that runs straight across right here and then there's a couple down here. And Yosemite Valley and there's one from the south, I believe. But most of it is wilderness area. So the best way to experience this park is on foot by hiking it. And so that's why we're doing it and we highly recommend it to anyone. It is a once in a lifetime experience. Trailhead permits in Yosemite are all by lottery. Some areas of the park are in much higher demand than others and we just happen to score one in a really hard to get place. We'll be departing from Yosemite Valley down here. There's a handful of trailheads that start there and those are the highest demand trailheads in the whole park. Anything that involves half-dome, I guess this, like southeast quadrant of the park, reservations fill up really quickly. The way that I got our permits is every day for about a week. I would get up at like five in the morning, go to their website and submit three trips that I wanted to take. Most of them got denied but on the seventh try we actually managed to land it. You'll find out within two business days whether you've got the permits or not. The one that I actually got I found out within about an hour. Something to know about the wilderness trailhead permits is that they are single use. Once you leave from your starting trailhead in the backcountry with the wilderness areas in the park, any reentry into any of the other trailheads will be considered the end of your trip. At that point you need another wilderness permit to go back out. So you got to plan really carefully, make sure you bring enough food and water to maximize your time out there. The best way to book your permits is to choose three trips, meaning three beginning trailheads that are focused around the sites that you want to see. You can find wilderness trailhead information on your semifix website and that's also where you'll book your trip. Once you've decided where you want to go, you'll want to check the full trailhead report to ensure that you can go when you want to. If you find your trailheads and start dates listed here together, unfortunately that means that they're already full and that you'll need to either choose a different trailhead or a new later start date. A great alternative to changing your travel dates would be hiking your trip in reverse. This way you see the same things but you still have a chance at getting a permit. The day that they become available 288 days in advance, submit for your three trips that you want. Do it again the next day but just move your start date for each of those trips one day ahead. Say I didn't get the trailhead for July 1st so I'll just submit again the next day for that same trip but on July 2nd. But just do not submit two applications for the same exact trips on the same exact day because that'll have you completely out of the pool. The people who are submitting for trailhead permits will be called group leaders and you can submit for up to a party of six. I think you'll be doing it for everyone and you should also know a basic itinerary of what you guys are going to do. Like your first nights campsite, how many days you plan to be out, whether or not you have packet animals with you, that sort of thing. Your reservation is not confirmed until you pay. You must pay the fees within 48 hours or your reservation will be cancelled. So $5 fee for processing the application and then additional $5 a head for everyone in your party. So for Louise and I it was $15 to little. And so you can pay by credit card or paypal I think. You technically don't have a permit yet until the day you pick it up. You'll be instructed to pick up your wilderness permit one day ahead of your hike date. If your trip is to start on July 2nd, you'll be instructed to pick it up on July 1st or on July 2nd before 10am from the wilderness center closest to your trailhead. These colored arrows that start from different places, those are the trailheads. Camping is only allowed beyond those arrows if you have a backpacking permit. Typically there are at least a few miles in. You've got a hike for a bit before you decide to plop a tent down. Or the day before your hike you can stay in a backpackers campground. There are some additional rules if you read through all of this stuff on the website. You'll find little things here and there about where you can't camp. Everyone does need a permit, a high capdome. If you're backpacking in your semiday and you have a your semiday, wilderness trailhead permit on a trail that reasonably passes near half dome. They give you the option of adding on half dome as part of your trailhead permit. And that can be a really good way to experience that. The other option if you're a car camping and you want a day high capdome, you can apply online in another lottery through recreation.gov and that opens up in March. So submit your application any day in March and then you'll find out by mid-April or so if you've gotten the permit. That might throw a wrench in the gears for your vacation if you're planning something. You'll probably be relying on standby permits at that point. I think it's up to 50 per day. All of these wilderness trailhead permits, there are standbys for them as well. Because people make reservations early on like we did and then they'll cancel. The day of their hike in the morning before 10am, you can go to these wilderness centers like Ranger stations. You can wait in a standby line. And if those people don't show, that'll be your permit for the day. There's still hope, even if you don't book early. So the half-dome day permits that are available through recreation.gov, there is a $10 processing fee if you were lucky enough to get permits. You can reserve for up to six people in a party and if you are awarded permits, it's $10 ahead after that initial fee. There is really an immense amount of information to know before you go. The first thing is going to be a bear awareness. You must have a bear canister at your assembly with you in the back country if you're staying overnight. Anytime you got smelly stuff, you got food, you got facial wash, anything with scent deodorant that has to go in that canister at night. Garbage also has to go in that canister because it'll smell. So try not to create too much garbage for yourself. In our experience, if you plan to go more than once, get your own bear canister because you can spend your time at home packing it strategically and stuff and you can really know how much food you can fit in there. Or you can rent one from one of the wilderness centers around Yosemite. The price will be on screen. We'll find it here later. Get your bear awareness. Getting a Yosemite wilderness trail had permit in a nutshell. Decide first where you want to go and what you want to see be super persistent and diligent about getting your reservation booked online. Make sure you pay it within 48 hours and just be super prepared and you will get a permit. So we wish you the best of luck in scoring your permits. We hope this video has been helpful. Please like and subscribe and we'll see you on the trail. Bye. I'm going back to my hammock now. It's because of this thing. Can you step on that? Sit up. Morning.