How to Get a Half Dome Permit (Plus Tips to Increase Your Chances!)
Wondering how to get a Half Dome permit? You’ve come to the right place! We’ll tell you everything you need to know about how to get this highly coveted permit, the different types of permits there are, how to enter the Half Dome lottery, how much it costs, and perhaps most importantly, what you can do to increase your odds of getting the Half Dome permit!
So, you want to climb Half Dome? Awesome! If you’re properly prepared and know what you’re getting into (those cables are no joke!), then the Half Dome hike in Yosemite National Park is a super fun, challenging, and incredibly rewarding hike with amazing views over the entire Yosemite Valley.
What makes the Half Dome hike challenging isn’t solely the hike itself. Sure, it involves 14 miles of hiking and nearly 5,000 feet of climbing (not to mention the final 400 foot ascent up the steep cable section), taking most people an average of 10-12 hours (that’s a long day on the trail!).
But even before all that, your first challenge is getting the coveted Half Dome permit.
Thousands and thousands of people want to climb Half Dome every year (yep, it’s a popular one!). Because of this popularity, the park service has set limits on the number of people who can hike Half Dome on any given day to reduce crowds and increase safety on the cables (and once you see the cables, you’ll be thankful that they do this!). The high demand means getting a Half Dome permit can be tough.
But we’re here to help!
In this article, we’ll walk you through exactly how to get a Half Dome permit. We’ll cover the Half Dome lottery and how to apply, give you all the important need-to-know dates, and give a few helpful hints about how to increase your chances at getting a Half Dome permit. So get out some pen and paper and get ready to take some notes!
In this Half Dome permit guide:
Can You Hike Half Dome Without a Permit?
The answer here is yes and no.
Half Dome permits are only needed at a certain time of year – when the cables are up. The Half Dome cables are placed along the final 400 feet of the climb up to the summit. This climb goes up steep slick granite rock (with an incline of up to 60 degrees at times), so having cables here to hold on to and guide you up make the hike infinitely safer.
The park services typically puts up the cables each year around Memorial Day and taken back down around Columbus Day. This varies every year based on weather and trail conditions so be sure to check the status of the Half Dome cables before you go. In 2023, it’s looking like the cables are expected to be up between May 26th to October 10th.
Outside of these dates, Half Dome permits aren’t required, but we would highly recommend not hiking Half Dome when the cables are not up. It’s just not safe.
When the cables are up, you absolutely need a Half Dome permit, and yes, there will be rangers out there checking! Rangers are usually at the base of the subdome checking for Half Dome permits. Not only will you risk a huge fine if you hike Half Dome without a permit, but really, the permit system is there for a reason. Mainly safety. Trying to get around the permitting system really just increases the risk for everyone hiking. We know it can be frustrating to get, but this is why we’re writing this article…to help you out!
How much of the Half Dome hike can you do without a permit?
If you didn’t manage to get a Half Dome permit, you can hike most of the trail, actually. It’s only the last roughly half mile (from the base of the subdome to the summit) that you won’t be able to hike (of course this is arguably the best part of the entire hike!).
The first part of the trail is the famous Mist Trail that goes to Nevada and Vernal Falls, which is worth hiking to on their own. If you don’t have a Half Dome permit, we wouldn’t necessarily say it’s worth going all the way to the base of the subdome, but doing a loop of the mist trail with the John Muir Trail would be a great option that gives you iconic Yosemite views, and you don’t need a permit!
What Types of Half Dome Permits Are There?
There are two types of Half Dome permits, and there are different methods to getting each one.
Day hiking Half Dome
The Half Dome day hike is a 14 mile trail with 4800 feet of elevation gain. It’s a long day, taking 10 or more hours. The trail is incredibly scenic, as it traverses through Yosemite Valley along the famous Mist Trail, passing the beautiful Vernal and Nevada Falls. The trail then joins up with the John Muir trail as it climbs through the valley. Finally, you’ll make the turn onto the Half Dome trail and make your way up the sub dome, the cables, and finally to the summit.
There are a few different ways to get a permit to day hike Half Dome:
A preseason lottery held in March
A daily lottery held throughout the hiking season)
We’ll talk about each of these options in just a bit.
Half Dome backpacking permit
You can hike to Half Dome as part of an overnight wilderness trip in Yosemite. This type of Half Dome permit is completely different than the permit for day hiking, and the process for getting it is also very different. There are a few different ways to get these Half Dome permits as well, and we’ll talk about these more below.
How many people get Half Dome permits?
Ok, here’s where its gets rough. A maximum of just 300 hikers are allowed per day on the cables (225 day hikers and 75 backpackers).
Note that this is 300 hikers, not permits. So if a group of 6 applies for one Half Dome permit and gets it, that’s 6 slots now unavailable, not 1. Now, 300 might sound like a lot, but when thousands of people fight for these spots a day, it suddenly doesn’t sound like a whole lot anymore.
So with that in mind, let’s get to what you came here for…
How Do I Get A Half Dome Permit?
The method of getting a Half Dome permit depends on if you want to day hike to Half Dome, or if you want to add it on as part of a backpacking trip in Yosemite. We’re going to go over a lot of info here, but we’ll summarize all the methods of how to get a Half Dome permit at the end of this article for easy reference!
How to get a Half Dome day hike permit
There are two main ways to get a permit to day hike to Half Dome, and both require a bit of luck, as they are each lotteries.
The Half Dome preseason lottery
The preseason Half Dome lottery is the main way most people get a Half Dome permit. Basically, you enter your group into a giant pool of people all vying for the same permit, and then you leave it up to the lottery gods to draw your name.
how to enter the Half Dome lottery
The Half Dome lottery system is done through recreation.gov. You’ll have to make an account on this website, which will manage the whole process for you…the application for the lottery, all notifications, and any confirmed reservations.
When is the Half Dome lottery? The Half Dome lottery occurs every year in March. Any time between March 1st and March 31st, you can submit your application.
The Half Dome lottery application is pretty simple to fill out. You’ll select a trip leader – the person who must pick up the Half Dome permit and keep it with them at all times during the hike to present to rangers along the trail- and one alternate leader. You can have a total of up to 6 people on one application. You’ll also be able to choose up to 7 different desired dates for your Half Dome hike, ranking them by preference from your highest desired date to your least desired date.
Once you submit your Half Dome lottery application, you can’t make any changes, so double and triple check all your information! After submitting, just cross your fingers and hope for the best! Results will be emailed to you sometime in mid-April.
How much does a Half Dome permit cost through the lottery?
The application to submit to the Half Dome lottery costs $10, which is non-refundable, and if you win a permit, you’ll automatically be charged $10 per person on the permit (this is refundable as long as you cancel your trip at least one day before your hike date).
The Half Dome daily lottery
If the lottery gods were not on your side, don’t get too down on yourself, because you still have more chances to score that coveted Half Dome permit! But it does require a bit more flexibility on your part in terms of when you are able to actually hike Half Dome.
Throughout the Half Dome climbing season, a daily Half Dome lottery is held each morning. About 50 Half Dome permits are available each day this way, although the exact number depends on how many permit cancellations there were.
The Half Dome daily lottery, like the preseason lottery, occurs on recreation.gov. To enter the daily Half Dome lottery, you apply two days before you want to hike Half Dome, between 12 am and 4 pm (Pacific Coast Time) (i.e. for a Saturday hike you would enter the lottery on Thursday morning between 12 am and 4 pm). A notification letting you know if your application was successful or not will be sent that night.
So if you are close enough to Yosemite and have the flexibility to hike Half Dome under short notice, the daily Half Dome lottery is a great option to increase your chances of getting a Half Dome permit! You can keep applying into each daily lottery until you’re successful.
How hard is it to get a Half Dome permit?
So we went over the options of how to get a Half Dome permit, but how hard is it to actually get one? Well, this is where things get a little disheartening.
We won’t sugarcoat this one…it’s hard.
Let’s look at some stats to see what the odds of winning the Half Dome lottery actually are. They might be grim, but stats are our friend here, because it will also help us see what you can do to increases your chances at winning the Half Dome lottery (and everyone wants to do that, right?!).
The most recent reliable statistics come from 2019, and we think they paint a pretty good picture of what you’re up against in the Half Dome lotteries.
In the preseason Half Dome lottery, there were 34,098 applications. I will repeat. Thirty four thousand. Yikes. The success rate of actually getting a permit was 28%.
In the daily Half Dome lotteries, there was a total of 20,167 applications, with a 23% success rate.
With odds like these, you might be wondering if there is any way you can increase your chances of getting a Half Dome permit, even just a little. Well, maybe…
How can I increase my chances of getting a Half Dome permit?
While there is no sure- fire way to get a Half Dome permit, here are some ways that might stack the odds a little bit more in your favor.
The NPS site has some awesome statistics on past years’ lottery to help you figure out the best days to select on your application to increase your chances of winning the Half Dome lottery.
This page has a giant bar graph showing the exact number of applications submitted during the preseason Half Dome lottery for every day of the hiking season. So just a quick browse of these graphs will give you a sense of which days will give you better odds at winning the Half Dome lottery in general. You can certainly see there’s a cyclical pattern to the number of applications, with the highest being for Saturdays by far, and the lowest being mid-week, usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
In 2019, the success rate of getting a permit for a weekday was 2.6%, and just 1.6% for a weekend day in the preseason lottery. In the daily lottery, it was a 27% success rate for a week day vs. a 16% success rate for a weekend.
Take home: Apply for mid-week days to increase your odds of getting a Half Dome permit.
Another trend you’ll notice in these graphs is that the overall number of Half Dome lottery applications for each day decreases towards the end of the season. Starting at the end of August, as summer vacation ends and kids go back to school, the total numbers gradually decrease, until October when they are essentially cut in half from the summer peaks.
Take home: Apply for dates that are towards the end of summer or very early fall to increase your odds of getting a Half Dome permit. Just know that applying too late in the season may not be the best idea, since weather can get more unpredictable, and the cables may come down earlier than anticipated.
Since permits are awarded based on spaces left of that 225 total, it helps to have a smaller group size. That way, if a day is just about filled and there’s only 2 or 3 more slots available, you have a better chance of getting a permit over a group of 5 or 6.
Take home: Apply with a smaller group size to increase your chances of getting a Half Dome permit.
Finally, having a good amount of flexibility is a good way to increase your chances. We know this isn’t always possible. But being able to apply for a range of dates, or being able to start your hike on short notice and frequently applying to the daily Half Dome lottery will increase the odds of scoring a Half Dome permit.
How to get a Half Dome permit on a backpacking trip
If hiking 14+ miles in a day doesn’t sound appealing and you’d rather break up the hike into multiple days, or you’d rather just enjoy the Yosemite backcountry by spending a night or two in the wilderness (highly recommended!), then getting a Half Dome permit in conjunction with a Yosemite wilderness permit is a great option, and one that allows you to bypass the super competitive day hiker Half Dome lottery process!
While you do get to bypass that process, you do still have to obtain a Yosemite wilderness permit, and we wouldn’t quite say that snagging a Yosemite wilderness permit is exactly a walk in the park either, depending on which backcountry trip you want to take and where you plan to camp.
Here, we’ll give you all the details on how exactly to get a wilderness permit and how to add on a Half Dome permit!
But first, let’s go over some common ways to add Half Dome as part of a backcountry trip.
Common Ways to Add Half Dome to a Backcountry Trip in Yosemite
There are a few different routes that you can take where you can make Half Dome a reasonable add on to your backcountry trip. The park service will only allow you to add on Half Dome to your permit if your starting trailhead is one of the following:
Happy Isles to Little Yosemite Valley
Glacier Point to Little Yosemite Valley
Happy Isles past Little Yosemite Valley
Sunrise Lakes
Cathedral Lakes
Rafferty Creek to Vogelsang
Mono Meadow
So, grab a Yosemite map and plan out your route! Here are some popular ways to tackle a backcountry trip to Half Dome to help you jump start your planning:
Happy Isles to Little Yosemite Valley: The most common overnight trip that involves hiking Half Dome is starting at the Happy Isles trailhead, spending the night in Little Yosemite Valley, and then hiking up Half Dome the following morning followed by a hike all the way back out to Happy Isles in the afternoon.
This is a great way to get a head start on the day hikers, so you can beat the crowds at the cables which is key if you’re nervous about too many people on the most dangerous part of the hike.
This is a very popular option, though, and wilderness permits to camp at Little Yosemite Valley campground are hard to come by.
Sunrise Lakes trailhead: This is on the opposite side of the valley form Happy Isles, in the Tuolumne Meadows area of Yosemite. This is a one- way overnight hike that will take you from Tuolumne Meadows and up and over Clouds Rest on the first day, and the up Half Dome and out of the Happy Isles trailhead on the second day.
Cathedral Lakes Trailhead: This is the option we did and loved it! We followed the John Muir Trail by the Cathedral Lakes on the first day, went up and over Clouds Rest on the second day, and climbed Half Dome on the third day. This is an incredibly scenic hike from start to finish, and we highly recommend it if you’re an avid hiker and backpacker.
The last two options are one way hikes and require working out some transportation logistics beforehand.
We have an article coming out soon that will give more information about backpacking in Yosemite, including how to obtain a Wilderness Permit, how to arrange transportation, what to expect, and more, so stay tuned for that!
For more information on this in the meantime, check out the NPS Yosemite website as well.
Getting a Yosemite Wilderness Permit
The main hurdle to getting a Half Dome permit on a backcountry trip is getting the Wilderness Permit. Once that’s obtained, adding on the Half Dome permit to your Wilderness Permit is pretty straight forward.
You basically have four chances to score a wilderness permit, by lottery (yes, another lottery!), by early reservation, by late reservation, and by last minute walk up.
The Wilderness Permit lottery
The lottery for Yosemite Wilderness Permits is held on a weekly basis. A new week of dates becomes available at once 24 weeks in advance on recreation.gov. During that week- long reservation period (Sunday through Saturday), you can submit an application for up to 8 combinations of starts dates and starting trailheads within the Saturday to Friday of the open period. This sounds a bit confusing, but as an example, if your desired starting date for your backpacking trip is between June 25th and July 1st, 2023, then you would enter the lottery running from January 8th to January 14th. After July 14th, this lottery closes and a new one opens. So from January 15th to the 21st, you can apply to start dates from July 2nd-8th, and so on. This awesome chart shows all the important dates for each lottery throughout the hiking season, so bookmark this for later!
It’s important to know that it doesn’t matter what day in the week of the lottery you’re going for that you submit the application. Every entry is given an equal chance!
The good thing about the Wilderness Permit lottery is that you don’t have to wait very long to find out your fate. You get your results the Monday after the lottery closes, and then if you’re successful (yay!), you have to accept and pay by that Thursday. This is helpful because you can then enter in the next week’s lottery if you need to!
How much does a Yosemite Wilderness Permit Cost?
To apply in the lottery, the fee is $10 per application, and if successful, it costs $5 per person per night.
How do I add on Half Dome to my Wilderness Permit?
Good question! It’s pretty simple, fortunately! If Half Dome is a reasonable part of your trip and you are starting from one of the trailheads mentioned above, then you can request to add Half Dome on to your backpacking trip when you pick up your permit at the Wilderness Center in Yosemite. It will only cost an extra $10 per person, so make sure to have cash or card on you when you arrive!
Getting a Yosemite Wilderness Permit by reservation
Any Yosemite Wilderness Permits that have not been taken by the lottery are released 22 weeks before the trip start date. They are available for reservation on recreation.gov and are first come first served. They are available until taken or up to 7 days prior to the start date.
Forty percent of all trailhead quotas are kept for late reservation. These reservations are released 7 days prior to the start date on recreation.gov at 7am Pacific Time. Again, these are reserved on a first come first served basis and can go really fast for popular trailheads! Be logged in to recreation.gov right at 7!
These reservations can be made up to three days before the starting date.
Getting a walk up Yosemite Wilderness Permit
Finally, if you haven’t had any luck reserving a Yosemite Wilderness Permit online, and you are very flexible and spontaneous on your starting date, then you can try your luck at an in-person walk up permit. Any unreserved permits are available at the Yosemite Wilderness Centers the day of the hike. But, definitely don’t count on this method for getting a Wilderness Permit…there might not be any available for the trailhead you want, so it’s really a gamble.
Can I increase my chances of getting a Yosemite Wilderness Permit?
There are two layers that really complicate getting a Half Dome permit through the Wilderness Permit route. The first, and most difficult part, is just getting the Wilderness Permit itself. This can be quite competitive for the more popular trailheads. There’s also a daily quota for backpackers on the Half Dome cables, but once you’ve gotten the Wilderness Permit in hand, you are pretty likely to be able to add on Half Dome. So it’s getting the Wilderness Permit that’s the main hurdle.
In order to increase your chances of getting a Yosemite Wilderness Permit, here are some tips:
Consider a midweek start date for your backpacking trip. Like the Half Dome day hike lottery, weekends are more requested than weekdays, so your chances will be higher if you aim for a midweek start.
Consider your trailhead options. Many people like to start from Happy Isles because it’s the easiest route option for a quick out and back overnight trip and doesn’t involve any transportation logistics. But consider starting from a trailhead on the opposite side of the valley and making a longer backpacking trip out of it. Not only will you have a better chance of scoring a permit, but you’ll get to see incredible scenery and avoid the crowds that you’ll find at Happy Isles and Little Yosemite Valley. During our two nights on the trail, we camped completely alone! It was pure backcountry solitude.
Keep at it! If you can be flexible on trip planning and start dates, you are able to apply every week to a new lottery, so just keep applying!
Know the important dates and times. Mark them on your calendar. Have your recreation.gov profile set up and be logged in and ready to go when reservations become released. Even a minute of time can make a big difference when trying to get a popular permit! Trust us!
Overview of How to Get a Half Dome Permit
We know this article had a lot of information, and it can seem a bit overwhelming with so many options and important dates to know, but here’s a quick summary of everything we talked about to help you figure out the best way to get a Half Dome permit!
Half Dome Day Hiking Permit
2 methods:
Preseason Half Dome Lottery: Held every March
Daily Half Dome Lottery: Held daily, two days prior to the hike date
Half Dome Backpacking Permit
4 methods of getting a Wilderness Permit (which you can then add a Half Dome permit onto):
Rolling weekly lottery: Held 24 weeks in advance for a given week of dates between May and October
Early reservations on recreation.gov: available 22 weeks in advance up to 7 days in advance
Late reservations on recreation.gov: available 7 days in advance up to 3 days in advance
Walk-up permits: available in person the day of the trip
Looking For More Things to Do Near Half Dome?
If your hike up to Half Dome is just one part of a California road trip, then check out some other articles to give you some travel inspiration!
The Ultimate Guide to the Best Things to do in Death Valley National Park
The Perfect One to Three Day Death Valley Itinerary
We really hope this article gave you all the information you needed to know how to get a Half Dome permit! If you have any questions, or have any advice for those looking to get one, let us know in the comments below! And of course, we wish you the best of luck in getting your Half Dome permit!