The RRFW Grand Canyon Lottery telephone assistance Help-line is available at (928) 856-9065, through noon May 28, 2007, on a first-come first-serve basis.
This help line has been set up to assist lottery candidates in navigating the myriad web pages required to be profiled, submit an application and pay the required fee. You may also contact Tom Martin.
Grand Canyon National Park will accept lottery applications for calendar year 2008 self guided Colorado River permits, through 12:00 noon (Arizona time) on May 28, 2007.
River Runners for Wilderness has also published an online Grand Canyon Lottery Information Primer. This step-by-step tutorial features web page images captured from the Grand Canyon National Park website during this month's lottery with text explanations to help you navigate the entire process.
The Primer covers the two step registration and lottery process, group size, fees, and Potential Alternate Trip Leader information.
The Primer is available for download as an Adobe PDF file of 9.5MB at:
https://rrfw.org/lotteryguide/ by clicking on the link Lottery Primer.
The Grand Canyon River Permits Office also offers help at 1-800-959-9164 or by email at grca_riv@nps.gov.
The lottery drawing will take place on May 31st. The lottery is a new permit distribution system which only applies to the rafting public who does not use park river concessionaires. In contrast, open spots are available with river concessionaires for the 2008 river season, at prices of up to $450 per night.
Lottery applications will be accepted through the website https://npspermits.us/ and all lottery applicants will need to have set up a user profile before applying for the lottery at https://npspermits.us/grandcanyon/river/createUser.cfm.
Applications for the lottery cost $25,and must be paid online when the application is submitted. Applicants whowin a permit through the lottery will immediately be charged an additional $400 trip deposit.
This deposit is non-refundable even if the permit is cancelled immediately after the lottery. The trip deposit will be applied towards the final $100 per person cost of the permit. The Grand Canyon river permit and lottery charges are, by far, the highest do-it-yourself river running fees in the country.
A total of 213 river trips will be available through this lottery for calendar year 2008. Forty one of these are for small size (1 to 8 person) trips and the rest are for standard size (1 to 16 person) trips.
As of 9:00PM Mountain Standard Time, May 25, 2007, there were 1,711 permit applications submitted.
A calendar showing the available lottery dates is at http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/upload/2008_launch_calendar.pdf
This calendar also shows permits already assigned in 2008 to individuals from the prior river permit access system, the Waiting List, which still has over 4,000 pending permit applications.
The lottery is part of the contested 2006 Colorado River Management Plan. The new plan, presently in litigation, offers do-it-yourself river runners an increased opportunity to get permits, but nearly all of the new trips are during the winter months. The new plan also mandates cuts in self guided trip lengths throughout the year, and imposes a one-trip per year policy on all river runners.