The Wait Begins.

Marlys and I want to hike the Grand Canyon this year. Nothing extensive just the South Kaibab-Bright Angel loop.

This is about a 16 mile/~4500' trip going to the bottom and back up, but because a overnight at the bottom, is needed, and we can't get reservation at Phantom Ranch (until sometime next year), we will need to camp. Camping requires a Backcounty Permit.

The soonest you can apply for a BCP is 4 months before you want to go. According to available info, about ~30K people apply, but only about ~17K are issued.

So the strategy is to get your permit application in ASAP, via fax, when the window opens and then to give the Rangers great flexibility in finding a date and getting you a permit, e.g. open up the date and campground options.

We missed the May window (apps go in in January).

Last night starting at 12am, I started faxing (attempting) in our application, at 1:03am it finally went through.

Now we wait. It could take up to 3 weeks to hear back.