A Call for Permit Reform

A recent post on Grand Canyon Private Boaters Association’s Facebook page called for a reform of the current permit lottery system operated by rec.gov. After getting skunked ourselves for the umpteenth time, we couldn’t agree more…

In the 1980s and ‘90s, river runners in the southwestern United States packed their gear and headed into the heart of canyon country. Whether it was Desolation Canyon, the Gates of Lodore, the San Juan, the Salt, Grand Canyon or the Yampa, those trips were the heartbeat of their year. It was where river runners connected with nature and with each other.

Today, that tradition is dying. It isn’t dying because we’ve lost interest. It is dying because we have been locked out. The system designed to manage these lands has become broken and corrupted. It is now nearly impossible for an average person to secure a permit. River runners are selling their rafts and giving up on the sport entirely, disheartened by a process that feels rigged. There are two causes of this. The lottery system, managed by Recreation.gov, has morphed into a wall that bars locals from their own backyard while antiquated allocation subsidies allow private tour companies to sit on unused trip permits.

The numbers paint a bleak picture. Last year alone, nearly 19,000 people applied for roughly 300 private permits in Dinosaur National Monument. That averages out to a meager 1.5% (1 in 66 years) chance of success. But even that number is misleading. For popular dates—when families can actually travel and kids are out of school—the success rate plummets to roughly 0.3% (1 in 300 years). We are quite literally waiting lifetimes for a single trip, competing against an ocean of applicants, many of whom aren’t even human.

Recreation.gov has failed to implement basic safeguards to prevent automated scripts from sweeping up scarce permits. It is well known—and Rec.gov is fully aware—that advanced bots are being used. There are setups where dedicated machines continuously scan for any permit (e.g., “any launch between May and October”) and instantly add them to a cart faster than a human hand can click.

We saw proof of this during the accidental early release of the 2024 Dinosaur National Monument lottery on March 4th. Within seconds—on an unannounced date—58 permits were snagged. When legitimate cancellation permits became available on the announced day of March 6th at 8 AM, over 16,000 attempts were made to grab roughly 31 unconfirmed high-use permits and 200 low-use permits. If even a fraction of those accounts are bots, the average person stands statistically zero chance.

It isn’t just tech-savvy individuals anymore; the unfairness has been commercialized. Subscription services like Campnab and Schnerp have industrialized this advantage. For a monthly fee, these companies scan the system for you. This creates a literal two-tiered system: those who can afford to pay a third party for “premium” access to public lands, and everyone else left refreshing their browsers in vain. Why hasn’t this been fixed? The answer appears to be simple economics. Recreation.gov is run by Booz Allen Hamilton, a private consulting firm that operates on a transaction-fee model.

They charge a fee for every application, regardless of whether you win or lose. Booz Allen Hamilton has invoiced over $140 million in fees in recent years. When 18,000 people apply for 300 spots, Booz Allen Hamilton gets paid for all 18,000 transactions.

In fact, they make more money when the system is clogged and desperate. Every rejected application is revenue. Every frantically refreshed page during a cancellation drop is potential profit. This is a pay-to-play system transferring wealth from hopeful boaters directly to a government contractor in Washington D.C., while our local rangers remain underpaid and our recreation facilities deteriorate.

While do-it-yourself public boaters fight over Rec.gov scraps, the private tour companies are in subsidized oligopolies allowing immediate access to the commercial side of the river. They often operate with startling inefficiency. Only 66% of the total private tour allocation subsidy is actually utilized in Dinosaur National Monument. That equates to roughly 100 trips annually—potential access for 2,500 people—that never launch but are in the management plan. There seems to be no penalty for private tour companies who hoard permits they don’t use. Many of these operators consistently run less than 50% of their capacity yet retain their allocation year after year. Meanwhile, strict “no-show” penalties for do-it-yourself boaters (a 2-year ban) are mathematically irrelevant when it takes 66 years to win a permit anyway.

1. Rewrite the Dinosaur River Management Plan: We are at a critical juncture. Canyonlands National Park has recently updated their River Management Plan; Dinosaur National Monument must do the same. We cannot continue to operate on data and policies from the 1950s through 1970s.

2. Stop the Renewal of Recreation.gov: The current contract is a scam on the American public. We must push to end this relationship with Booz Allen Hamilton and return control (and revenue) to the managing agencies like the National Park Service, US Forest service, and Bureau of Land Management.

3. Stop the Bots: Implement simple human verification during checkout such as captcha.

4. Permit Accountability: Enforce “use it or lose it” policies on private tour companies.

5. Transparency: Publicly post all lottery statistics and all private tour company actual use figures so there is actual transparency and oversight.

Our rivers are a public resource, not a corporate profit center. The current system is not just incompetent; it is apathetic to the people who love and care for these lands the most.