John Muir Trail Permits: How the Lottery Works

Since 2015, Yosemite has allowed exactly 45 hikers a day to exit its high country over Donohue Pass. Every southbound John Muir Trail hike has to cross Donohue, so that ceiling is the trail's true gate — permit requests doubled between 2011 and 2015, and the park answered with a number. The crux of the John Muir Trail is paperwork.

The walking, by High Sierra standards, is the merciful part. It's the getting permission that breaks people.

The numbers that gate the John Muir Trail

Donohue Pass exit quota: 45 hikers per day, in force since 2015
Lottery lead time: 60% of reservations drawn 24 weeks ahead; the rest released 7 days out
Distance: 211 miles, Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley to the summit of Mount Whitney
Typical time: about three weeks
Roads crossed: two — Tioga Road at Tuolumne Meadows and the Reds Meadow road
Tread shared with the Pacific Crest Trail: roughly 160 miles
High point: Mount Whitney, 14,505 ft — the top of the contiguous United States
Permits per thru-hike: one; Yosemite's covers the whole southbound trip

Two roads in 211 miles

On the map below, the dot leaves Happy Isles, on the floor of Yosemite Valley, touches pavement at Tuolumne Meadows and once more at Reds Meadow near Devils Postpile — then never again. No road crosses the line before it ends on Mount Whitney, 14,505 feet up on the roof of the contiguous United States. For roughly 160 of its 211 miles the route is also the Pacific Crest Trail — the two share tread through the heart of the range.

That emptiness is the draw, and it is also the problem. There is no easy bailout here; quitting mid-route means climbing a lateral pass and walking a long side canyon east to a distant road-end. Rangers can't rotate crowds through a corridor with two doors, so Yosemite rations the front door instead. California began cutting this trail in 1915, the year after John Muir died, on a $10,000 appropriation from the state legislature; the final section at Palisade Creek wasn't finished until 1938. Twenty-three years to build. About three weeks to walk. And in a lottery drawn 24 weeks out, longer to win the right to start than to finish — you can study every switchback of it first on the John Muir Trail route page.

When the dot passes Reds Meadow, note what disappears from the frame: every road, for the rest of the run.

The John Muir Trail, traced end to end — follow the moving dot, or drag to explore the terrain yourself (two-finger pan on touch).

John Muir Trail permit questions, answered straight

Real questions, direct answers. No fees quoted here, because fees change; the current rules live on Yosemite's JMT permit page, and that page is the only one that counts.

How does the John Muir Trail permit lottery work?

Sixty percent of Yosemite's wilderness-permit reservations are released by lottery on Recreation.gov 24 weeks before each start date; the remaining 40 percent drop seven days out. A southbound thru-hike needs a Donohue-eligible reservation from one of two trailheads — Happy Isles past Little Yosemite Valley, or Lyell Canyon out of Tuolumne Meadows. You pick dates, list alternates, and wait for the drawing.

What is the Donohue Pass exit quota?

A daily cap, in force since 2015: no more than 45 hikers per day may exit Yosemite southbound over Donohue Pass — 15 permits from the Happy Isles trailhead, 30 from Lyell Canyon. It exists because the trail's popularity was outgrowing its corridor — and because, as the map shows, there is nowhere else to route the overflow.

How long does the John Muir Trail take?

About three weeks for most hikers. The mileage is modest by thru-hiking standards; the altitude is not, and the smart itineraries start slow out of Yosemite Valley so the body catches up to the elevation before the southern passes.

What if I don't win the lottery?

You still have the 40 percent of permits held back until seven days before each start date, plus two structural workarounds. Hike northbound from the south, where permits come through Inyo National Forest's separate system — its Whitney-area starts have their own contest, but different odds. Or aim for September, when demand thins and the drawing gets kinder.

Do I need more than one permit?

No. Hiked as a single continuous trip, one Yosemite wilderness permit covers the entire 211 miles, through every forest and park boundary to the south. That one sheet of paper is why the lottery matters so much: win once and the whole High Sierra opens.

July, August, September — and why southbound

The JMT season is the High Sierra's snow-free window, which in a normal year means July through September. Earlier, the high passes are snowfields and the creeks run loud with melt; later, the first autumn storms start closing the door. How a winter's snowpack sets a long trail's entire calendar is really the Pacific Crest Trail's story — the previous piece in this series — and it applies double here, since the two trails share their tread through this range.

Southbound is the classic direction for a reason. Happy Isles sits near 4,000 feet and the trail trends upward from there, so a southbound hike acclimatizes as it goes and saves the highest ground for legs that have earned it. Northbounders flip the problem: the biggest country comes first, the permit comes from a different agency, and the finish is a valley floor instead of a summit.

Before the lottery opens

This is the third stop in a fourteen-trail series on America's long trails — new installments land each morning in the Outdoors Journal. If this would be your first trip measured in weeks rather than nights, read planning your first multi-day backpacking trip before you enter any drawing — resupply math scales up more gracefully than it scales down.

When your dates finally land, build the plan on Outdoors — the full JMT line, its exit trails, and every mile of the range around it, on one map.

Hero photograph: Thousand Island Lake and Banner Peak from the John Muir Trail, Ansel Adams Wilderness. by Dcrjsr, licensed under CC BY 3.0.

Sources

Hero photograph: Thousand Island Lake and Banner Peak, seen from the John Muir Trail in the Ansel Adams Wilderness. by Dcrjsr, licensed under CC BY 3.0.

The Hardest Mile of the John Muir Trail Is the Permit