Grand Canyon National Park officials announced today the start of two lotteries for non-commercial river trips on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park.
Both lotteries started today, October 4, 2007, and run through noon, Wednesday October 10.
One lottery is for November and December trips in 2007. The dates in this lottery are November 30th, December 8th, 16th, 18th, 25th, and the 26th.
The second lottery is for trips in2008. The dates for the 2008 season are January 1st, 7th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 21st, 24th, 25th, and 26th, February 3rd and 7th, March 5th, August 10th, October 14th, November 6th and 8th and December 8th and 22nd.
Anyone interested in one of these launches must either create or have already created a user profile, and then login at https://npspermits.us/. Once logged in, click on "Create Application" under the lottery for which they wish to apply.
Unfortunately, at the time of this Riverwire, the web page at https://npspermits.us/ cited by the National Park Service still displays information for the August 22 Lottery. Users must scroll down to the bottom of thepage and either log in or create a new profile to log in.
The last lottery conducted by Grand Canyon National Park was conducted in August, and had 132 applicants for 9 permits. For information on the last lottery, see: http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/upload/2007_Follow-up_Lottery_aug07.pdf.
Individuals are eligible to apply in one or both lotteries as long as they are at least 18 years old and not already members of other noncommercial or commercial trips launching in the same calendar year as the desired launch date.
No person may be listed on more than 1 application within any year's lottery. The lottery drawings will take place on October 10th.
River runners who have not set up a profile with the Park, or do not have internet connections have no way of knowing of an impending lottery, so tell your river running friends.
River Runners for Wilderness (http://www.rrfw.org/) continues to offer free lottery assistance through email and a phone hotline for the complicated 25 page sign-up and lottery application process.
The RRFW telephone assistance Help-line is available at (928) 856-9065, throughout this lottery on a first-come first-serve basis.
Lottery applicants can refer to the RRFW online lottery tutorial, available for download as an Adobe PDF file of 9.5MB by clicking on the "Lottery Primer" link at: https://rrfw.org/lotteryguide/.
Additionally, lottery information is available at the free Rafting Grand Canyon Wiki at: https://rrfw.org/RaftingGrandCanyon/Main_Page.
Discussion of the Grand Canyon lottery and winning strategies may be found at The Rafting Grand Canyon Yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Rafting_Grand_Canyon/.
River Runner for Wilderness offers these services at no charge, supported entirely through your generous donations at: https://rrfw.org/catalog.
The Grand Canyon River Permits Office also offers help at 1-800-959-9164 or by email at grca_riv@nps.gov.