Quote:
You have to be online and ready to go right at 7:00...They go really fast...

Understatement of the year!

This morning at 10:00 (EDT) -- same as 7:00 a.m. PDT -- I was already logged on, had Half Dome Cables, my preferred date, number of permits all selected and ready to go. I even had copied my credit card number after typing it in Word, so I could just paste it into the payment section when I got there.

So then, precisely at 10:00:00 a.m. (after clicking the Select button about once a minute leading up until then, just in case their clock was running earlier than mine), I finally got on, filled out the information, clicked the various buttons (had to refill in the quantity again on the payment page!), with payment finally going through and the permit being confirmed at 10:03 a.m.

Immediately, I went back to do another order of 4 for the same day of the week, but one week earlier (since we don't know for sure which of two weeks our Whitney permits will end up being), was back on the appropriate page with Half Dome and the earlier date filled within about 30 seconds, clicked Book Permit, and all 300 were already gone for that date (and from the looks of it, for the entire month of July) IN UNDER 4-5 MINUTES!!!!

Pity those folks who actually tried to call their in on the 800 number! They probably never got to first base.

CaT

If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracle of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.
- Lyndon Johnson, on signing the Wilderness Act into law (1964)