If I miss the lottery, can I still walk?

Often no for that date. Yosemite JMT access beyond the park is a Donohue Pass exit quota. Half Dome day-hiker permits are preseason plus a two-day-ahead daily lottery when the cables are up. Mount Whitney has a February–March lottery and a May–November daily cap. The Inca Trail is operator-only with a daily cap and a February closure. Confirm the live authority page; this desk does not invent leftover walk-up numbers.

Do you publish the permit fee?

Not on this public page. Recreation.gov, NPS, Inyo National Forest, and Peru’s ticket system state application and recreation fees on their own pages. Amounts here stay ungated only as a pointer: cited or omitted, never invented. Trail-page cost fields remain behind login where the record stores them.

Guides · Access · 2026

Permit lotteries: Whitney, Half Dome, JMT, Inca & more

Some marquee trails are capped by lottery or daily quota, not first-come. Miss the window and you do not walk. Public-level facts from the issuing authorities. Fee amounts are not copied here.

Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park, California

Plan from the authority’s calendar, not a rumour

A lottery is not a queue. Applications open on a published window; a share of permits is drawn; leftovers (if any) follow a second rule — a daily lottery, a seven-day-ahead pool, or first-come after winners fail to claim. Caps below are the figures on the official pages we checked 2026-09-17. Confirm before you apply. This is not a route planner and not a complete fee table. The live permit & season calendar lists what each stored record currently says.

John Muir Trail — Yosemite wilderness lottery

A wilderness permit is required. For a continuous JMT hike, Yosemite issues one permit for the entire trip. Full-trail access beyond the park is limited to Happy Isles to Past LYV and Lyell Canyon (Donohue Pass eligible). Donohue Pass exit quota is 45 people per day (15 from Happy Isles / 30 from Lyell Canyon).

nps.gov · 2026-09-17

Reservations: 60% by lottery 24 weeks ahead, 40% seven days ahead. Apply the week your 24-week window opens. Permit cost is not copied on this page. Detail: USA wilderness permits: John Muir Trail.

nps.gov · 2026-09-17

Half Dome cables — a separate lottery

NPS requires a permit to hike to the top of Half Dome when the cables are up. Cables are normally in place from the Friday before Memorial Day through the day after the second Monday in October (dates can move with conditions). This is not the JMT wilderness permit. The last stretch on the cables is a permit-only scramble we do not map as walking — see where hiking ends.

nps.gov · 2026-09-17

Day-hiker permits: a preseason lottery with applications 1–31 March (eastern time), 225 permits available for each day, results mid-April; plus a daily lottery two days before the hike (midnight–4 pm Pacific), for leftover and cancellation capacity. Apply on Recreation.gov. Backpackers request a Half Dome add-on with the wilderness permit instead of this day-hiker process. Application and per-person recreation fees are on Recreation.gov — not copied here.

nps.gov · 2026-09-17recreation.gov · 2026-09-17

Mount Whitney — Inyo National Forest lottery

Inyo National Forest requires a wilderness permit year-round to enter the Mt. Whitney Zone (day or overnight). The Mt. Whitney Trail lottery on Recreation.gov is the usual path for quota-season dates: apply 1 February–1 March; results post 15 March; winners must complete reservation details by 21 April or the award is revoked; remaining dates open 22 April. Quota season 1 May–1 November limits day use to 100 people per day and overnight to 60 per day. Non-quota season (2 November–30 April) is unlimited count, booked online up to two weeks ahead. Fee amounts are on Recreation.gov and the Forest Service page — not copied here. This catalog does not currently hold a Whitney trail record, so there is no trail link.

fs.usda.gov · 2026-09-17recreation.gov · 2026-09-17

Inca Trail (Classic 4-day) — operator-only daily cap

Not a public lottery. You cannot self-issue. Access is reserved through an authorized agency on tuboleto.cultura.pe. Daily capacity is on the order of 500 people, of which roughly 200–250 are trekkers — a public quota, not a price. Book months ahead. SERNANP closes the network all February for conservation, reopening 1 March 2026. The 2026 trail ticket is not Machu Picchu citadel entry. Amounts are not stated here. Detail: Peru Inca Trail permits.

gob.pe · 2026-09-17tuboleto.cultura.pe · 2026-09-17gob.pe · 2026-09-17

Quota without a lottery

Mount Rinjani (Sembalun) is quota-controlled through eRinjani: route, date, and a park-authorised guide for foreign trekkers. That is a cap, not a Recreation.gov-style lottery. Ticket amounts are not copied here.

rinjaninationalpark.id · 2026-09-17

Some high mountains use operator-only park entry rather than a public lottery. Kilimanjaro is the usual example of that pattern; this catalog does not currently hold a Kilimanjaro trail record, so there is no trail link and no fee copied from operator blogs.

How far ahead

Yosemite JMT: lottery 24 weeks ahead (60%), plus a 7-day-ahead pool (40%).
Half Dome day hikers: apply in March for the season; daily lottery 2 days out.
Mount Whitney quota dates: apply in February; claim by late April.
Inca Trail: operator booking months ahead; closed all February.

None of that is a promise that leftover permits exist on your date. Check the authority. See how we verify: official or Unverified, never invented.

Also in this desk: Permit & season calendar · USA wilderness permits (JMT) · Peru Inca Trail permits · Where hiking ends · How we verify.