How to Get a Yosemite Wilderness Permit
Most people meet Yosemite in the Valley: shoulder to shoulder on paved paths, craning at walls. Walk half a day out of any trailhead and the park empties out: high country, granite domes, lake basins, the Sierra light doing its thing at either end of the day. That’s the Yosemite worth planning around, and the only thing between you and it is a wilderness permit.
The good news, and it genuinely is good news: Yosemite’s permit system is not one brutal annual lottery you either win or wait a year for. It’s a rolling machine with several release valves, and inventory lands in the system nearly every week of the season. Most people only know about one of them. Here’s all of them.
Yosemite wilderness permit, in one breath
- Covers: overnight backpacking in Yosemite Wilderness. Required year-round. Day hiking needs no permit (Half Dome is the exception; see below).
- Where: Recreation.gov, permit #445859 (NPS wilderness permits).
- The split that runs everything: 60% of each trailhead’s quota goes out through a weekly lottery starting 24 weeks ahead. The other 40% releases seven days before your entry date, at 7 a.m. Pacific.
- The unit that matters: your trailhead and your entry date. Not your route. The quota is on where and when you start.
- Cost: $10 per application plus $5 per person if you get it. Non-refundable, non-transferable.
- Group size: up to 15 people on trail, dropping to 8 for cross-country travel more than ¼ mile off any trail.
- One more cap: you can hold only six active (future) reservations at a time.
How the system actually works
There are two doors, and they open at completely different times.
Door 1: the weekly lottery, 24 weeks out. From mid-November through early May, Yosemite runs a lottery every week. The application window is Sunday through Saturday, and you’re applying for start dates 24 weeks out, the Saturday-through-Friday block that corresponds to that week. Results land the following Monday. Win, and you must accept and pay by Thursday. Miss that and your reservation is cancelled, with no refund. That deadline matters more than it looks; we’ll come back to it.
Door 2: the week-ahead drop. The remaining 40% of every trailhead’s quota releases seven days before the entry date at 7 a.m. Pacific. This is a hard, predictable, weekly event, and it is the single most underrated door in Yosemite. It is the same mechanism whether or not a lottery ever happened for that date.
Between those two there’s a third, quieter release: twelve days after each lottery application period opens (roughly 22 weeks ahead) every trailhead that still has space goes first-come, first-served at 9 a.m. Pacific, and stays bookable right up until seven days out.
Last call for any of it: three days before your trip. After that the online system is closed to you.
The trailhead is the whole game
Yosemite quotas are per trailhead, per entry date, and demand across them is wildly lopsided. Everyone wants the same handful: the Valley-adjacent starts, the classic Half Dome-and-Clouds-Rest approaches, the Tuolumne headliners. Those go instantly and stay gone.
Meanwhile, plenty of trailheads on the same day, in the same park, with access to the same high country, never fill at all. If your plan is “I want to backpack in Yosemite” rather than “I must start at this exact trailhead,” you have far more options than the sold-out screen suggests. Shifting your entry point, or your entry date by a day or two, is the highest-leverage move available to you, and it costs nothing.
The second lever: season. Late April through mid-October is the crush. From late October through mid-April, trailhead quotas still apply, but most trailheads simply don’t fill, and permits are largely available without an advance reservation. Winter backpacking in Yosemite is a different and more serious undertaking, but if permits are what’s stopping you, the off-season isn’t gated the way summer is.
Didn’t get it? You’ve got four more shots
This is the part worth staying for.
1. The seven-day drop at 7 a.m. Pacific. Forty percent of the quota, a huge share, appears exactly one week before entry. Set an alarm. This is the most reliable recurring opportunity in the entire system, and it exists for every date, every trailhead.
2. Unclaimed lottery wins falling back in. Remember the accept-and-pay-by-Thursday rule? People miss it constantly. They win, they hesitate, plans wobble, the deadline passes. Those reservations get cancelled and that space returns to the pool. Every single lottery week generates some of this.
3. The 22-week first-come release, then the long drip. From that 9 a.m. release onward, unclaimed trailhead space is bookable right up to seven days out. Inventory doesn’t sit still in that stretch. It moves as plans firm up and fall apart.
4. Returns and itinerary changes all season. Yosemite’s fees are non-refundable, so you’ll see fewer casual cancellations here than at parks that refund, and that’s an honest caveat. But people still change itineraries (allowed up to three days out, subject to availability), groups shrink, trips collapse, and that space goes back on Recreation.gov with no announcement and no schedule.
That last part is the catch. Every one of these doors dumps inventory into Recreation.gov at a moment nobody tells you about, and it’s claimed by whoever happens to be looking. That’s the tedious, unwinnable-by-hand problem BigDirtyHikes is built to solve: we watch the trailheads and dates you care about and alert you the moment something opens, so you’re first to it. You book it yourself on Recreation.gov. We just make sure you see it in time.
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Want to be there for the seven-day drop? Yosemite's fees are non-refundable, so casual cancellations are thinner here. But the scheduled releases are real: 40% of each trailhead's quota lands seven days ahead at 7 a.m. PT, plus the 22-week release and every lottery win nobody pays for by Thursday. All of it goes to whoever is looking. BDH Pro watches your trailheads and dates and tells you the moment something opens. You book it yourself.
Watch Yosemite Wilderness → BDH Pro · $49/year
The mistakes that keep people out of the high country
- Only playing the lottery. The 40% seven-day drop is not a consolation prize. It’s nearly half the permits. Treating the lottery as the only door means ignoring the bigger one.
- Missing the Thursday payment deadline. You won. Pay. Reservations die on this rule every week, and no refund comes with the loss.
- Fixating on one trailhead. The quota is per trailhead. Flexibility here is worth more than any other tactic in this guide.
- Assuming you can walk up in July. Yosemite’s own guidance is blunt about it: don’t arrive expecting a walk-up permit in peak season. Wilderness centers are open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and there are no after-hours permits.
- Forgetting the three-day cutoff. Waiting until two days out means the online door already closed.
- Misunderstanding how Half Dome works. If you’re backpacking from one of the eligible entry trailheads (Happy Isles, Glacier Point to Little Yosemite Valley, Sunrise Lakes, Cathedral Lakes, Rafferty Creek, Mono Meadow) you do not enter a separate lottery. You add Half Dome on request when you pick up your wilderness permit. Plan your entry trailhead accordingly, because an ineligible start is what actually costs people the cables. Day hikers are the ones facing the separate Half Dome lottery, and since a returned day-hike spot re-enters that lottery rather than becoming a grabbable reservation, it’s not something we monitor. We’d rather tell you that than sell you an alert that can’t work.
You’ve got the permit. Now build the pack.
Yosemite backcountry means real elevation gain, cold nights at altitude even in summer, and a bear canister you’re required to carry. That’s what the BigDirtyHikes pack builder is for: build your Yosemite pack, watch the weight climb as you add gear, and reuse a gear closet trip to trip. Every ounce you skip is an ounce you’re not hauling up switchbacks.
Official sources (bookmark these)
Everything above is checked against these. If we ever disagree with them, they’re right and we’re wrong. Tell us and we’ll fix it.
- Recreation.gov permit #445859. The permit. Weekly lottery windows, the 22-week release, and the 7-days-out drop.
- NPS: Yosemite wilderness permits. The park’s own explanation of how the lottery and the releases fit together.
- NPS: Half Dome permits for wilderness hikers. The page that settles the Half Dome question: backpackers from eligible trailheads add it on request, no separate lottery.
- NPS: wilderness regulations. Group size (15 on trail, 8 cross-country), food storage, campfire and camping rules.
- NPS: current conditions. Road, trail, and pass status. Tioga Road’s opening date decides whether half these trailheads are reachable.
Why trust this guide
Untangling how Recreation.gov actually releases, holds, and returns permits (including the return timing above) is the whole of what we do here. If a date on this page is ever wrong, tell us and we’ll fix it fast. Accuracy is the entire point.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a permit to day hike in Yosemite? No. Wilderness permits are for overnight trips only. Half Dome is the exception, and it works differently depending on how you go: day hikers need a separate Half Dome permit from its own lottery, while backpackers starting from an eligible entry trailhead simply add Half Dome on request when they pick up their wilderness permit.
When do Yosemite wilderness permits become available? In two waves. Sixty percent go out through a weekly lottery starting 24 weeks before your entry date, with applications running mid-November through early May. The remaining forty percent release seven days before your entry date at 7 a.m. Pacific.
How much does a Yosemite wilderness permit cost? $10 per application, plus $5 per person if you’re awarded a permit. Both are non-refundable and non-transferable.
Can I still get a permit if I lose the lottery? Yes, and this is the important part. Forty percent of every trailhead’s quota drops seven days ahead at 7 a.m. Pacific, unclaimed lottery wins fall back into the pool when winners miss the Thursday payment deadline, and unbooked space stays first-come from about 22 weeks out until seven days before your trip.
What’s the last day I can book a Yosemite wilderness permit online? Three days before your trip start date. After that, the online system won’t take the reservation.
Are walk-up wilderness permits realistic in Yosemite? Not in peak season. From late April through mid-October, Yosemite advises against arriving and expecting one. From late October through mid-April, most trailheads don’t fill and permits are generally available without a reservation.