Grand Canyon National Park has launched the registration web site for the new Grand Canyon non-commercial river trip lottery.
The National Park Service, while admitting to a 25 year wait for a permit under the old system, has instituted a new weighted lottery as part of the 2006 Colorado River Management Plan. The Plan, now in litigation, failed to re-allocate use between the park's concessions and non-commercial river runners for the highly coveted summer river trips. The new plan also estimates that lottery applicants will wait as long as they did under the previous "waiting list" access system for a permit before winning the lottery.
Information about the new lottery can be obtained by visiting:
http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/weightedlottery.htm and https://npspermits.us/grandcanyon/river/login.cfm
According to the Grand Canyon web site, this is a two stage process, requiring registration and then application. The NPS web site states "Interested individuals can access the site for free to setup a profile and register to receive email updates concerning news and upcoming releases of launch dates." River Runners for Wilderness encourages all interested river runners to at least register in order to receive updates on how the lottery will work.
The registration and profile page is at:
https://npspermits.us/grandcanyon/river/login.cfm
The park indicates the lottery will be help sometime in October, however, lottery applications will not be accepted before October 1, 2006.