BLM is moving away from the lottery system for two reasons.   The first is, the lottery system is highly inefficient in providing users a quality recreation experience.  Approximately 60% of the launch reservations awarded through the lottery are cancelled.   Presently, we put more people on the river though the call-in system than we do through a lottery.   The second reason is cost control.  The lottery is an expensive process.   Changing to a call-in process will reduce costs by saving on printing, telephone answering, and application handling costs.  The lottery takes an inordinate amount of time and resources we would prefer to direct toward quality river recreation experiences instead of managing a lottery.

 

The main reason is, we value the personal contact with our users.  Most people who call for a river permit have other questions they would like answered.  Two-way, personal communication is simply more effective for dealing with the myriad of questions and scenarios people come up with. 

 

Another reason is, we want to concentrate our efforts on people who do river trips.   Most everyone wants to go on a river trip.  Relatively few make the commitments and efforts necessary to actually make the trip happen.  The current application system is flooded with applications from people who would not use the launch if it was offered to them.   We need a minimum of 1,400 applications to fill our calendar with approximately 500 launches. 

 

Lastly, due to the possibility of interruptions of internet service, we need a system that is not solely dependant on the internet.   Over the past several years, the BLM has had its websites unavailable to the public for months at time.  These have been the result of court orders and not within the control of the BLM.

 

No, we anticipate there will still be some cancellations on the private side.  Desolation is also the only river segment that makes unused commercial launches available to private users.   We anticipate additional June launches becoming available in April and May and we will post them to our website as soon as they become available.

 

Four of the campsites at Sand Wash are equipped with screen cabins.  The cabins are 12 X 16 feet and equipped with a table and bench.  They have dirt floors and you may camp in them.  At the present time, they are first come, first serve.  We are working to set up a reservation program for the cabins.