Half Dome FastPass

Hiking to Half Dome has become increasingly popular in recent years, and that has led to increasing congestion at the bottom of the cables on the most popular days. The long waits and pressure to pile on actually makes the cable slower for everyone and less safe, much like an overcrowded freeway. So experienced visitors schedule the day and time of their hike to avoid these peak periods.

After last June's fatal and non-fatal accidents, some people have again argued for instituting a permit system to limit the total hikers on peak days. The National Park Service has such permits in place for strictly rationing all overnight use of backcountry trails and also all day trips to the top of Mount Whitney. Some hikers vehemently hate the idea of adding any new rules onto Half Dome day hikes. If a permit system is instituted, here is how I suggest it could be done in a minimally-burdensome way.

This particular method below assumes no ranger on post at Sub Dome and none at lower trail junctions, and no government mandate to strictly limit access to Half Dome. The weakest element is social; whether frustrated hikers with no pass will ignore all fancy rules and just cut in front anyhow. They now stay in their place in the waiting line largely because there are no visible exceptions; no one is passing others.

The new cable reservation system would be modeled after Disneyland's FastPass, and called CablePass. It would be a voluntary online reservation to have first priority for going up the cable with minimal waiting during your selected hour of your selected day. Outside of that hour, hikers would have second priority access up the cable for the rest of the day, ahead of hikers without any CablePass.

Any hiker could continue to use the cables at any day or time without a pass, waiting in the usual first-come first-up order, except they would now be expected to allow all pass holders to go ahead of them. (On peak afternoons, they might then wait so long that they don't get up before their personal deadline to turn back.) There would be no ranger on site to manage this. The waiting hikers would just work this out by comparing their passes. (I hope!)

The total bookable reservations for any particular hour would be set to 80% or so of the cable system's highest flow rate in uncrowded conditions. There would be no reservations for late-afternoon hours in mid summer when thunderstorm activity is common, since the park should not appear to guarantee that those hours are a smart bet. There would be no reservations for low-demand hours like night time. (Otherwise, I could buy an always-available dummy 2:00 am pass just to get around all non ticket holders that day.)

Seventy-five percent of the reservation slots would go on sale online 60 days in advance for $20 per person. These could be switched (just once) to another available time and date without additional cost. You would re-confirm your intention and print a physical ticket by checking into the online website again in the week prior to the hike date. Two days before the hike date, any reservations still unreconfirmed are cancelled without refund and re-sold to someone else. The price is set to discourage wasteful speculative booking without adding much to the total costs of a hike visit (travel, lodging, food, gear). All profits would go to some non-profit related to Yosemite or Half Dome, e.g., YOSAR.

Twenty-five percent of the total reservation slots would be held back until two days before the hike date. They would sell for $5 per person and not need further re-confirmation.

No visit to any park office is necessary; planners would be able to do all this from home. People could also do this at the park at many existing ranger-staffed help desks.

The reservation software would remind hikers of the additional basic safety needs for this hike: non-slip shoes, water, gloves, and watching out for weather. The site could also require viewing of a safety video.

The software would remind hikers of the park's recommendation that they sleep locally before they begin the hike. (A permit system could enforce this by requiring all hikers to pick up their physical ticket in Yosemite itself during office hours in the days before the hike. However, this office visit would inconvenience lots of people and cause more car trips within in the valley.)

This system would not strictly cap the traffic during peak periods. But everyone would soon learn that hiking up there at peak times without a pass would usually result in multi-hour waits (significantly longer than now) and sometimes not summiting at all. Knowing that, most people would then choose a better time or day if they can, or plan some other Yosemite hike instead if their date is inflexible. But no one would ever be told "No, you can't go there today", including our foreign guests.

In practice, none of this ticket stuff will matter during non-peak periods. During peak periods, nearly everyone will have a ticket. People will stagger their starting times so they arrive a bit before the time on their ticket, so there will no longer be a single rush of everyone racing to the cables at dawn. Average waiting times should go way down. If a few hikers do not get to the cables by the time they targeted , they still have a very good prospect of going up within one hour.

This system would not aim to reduce total visits to Half Dome or satisfy some government-imposed strict cap requirement. This non-strict capping of popular non-work days will deter some visits and reduce the total visits somewhat. That (plus lowered waiting times) could lower the cumulative environmental impact on the trail and summit.

The setup costs and maintenance costs for this reservation system would be very low, and those costs would be covered by the fees. The main barrier is political, getting it approved and backed by the various interest groups of Yosemite.