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Boundary Waters Quetico ForumTrip Planning ForumBWCAW Permit Availability Study March 25, 2019
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03/25/2019 08:15PM
I've composed several limited studies on permit reservation demand, mostly for a small subset of EPs and a focused date range, but last April was the first time that I tried to compile a point-in-time snapshot of all permits remaining for the entire season. (A Look Back) That one happened to have been an arbitrarily chosen 11 weeks in, and the effort it took made it unlikely that I would be running it again very often: an hour of copy-paste, more time spent sorting, double-checking, formatting, and a couple more hours of manipulating data and creating image files…
Well, I’ve gotten it down to a 5- or 10-minute process to copy the information on all permits remaining on recreation.gov — 20 pages vs the 700 or so needed to compile last year’s info — and paste it into a spreadsheet that automatically sorts it by EP and creates conditionally formatted color calendars for the 153 days in the reservation season. 63 entry points x 153 dates = 9,639 numbers, representing what’s left of the 41,049 permits offered each year. (It’s actually uploading the images here and getting them into this post that takes the majority of the time…)
It went easily enough that I *hope* to offer this info each month as the season progresses, pulling the data one week before the next month begins. That way, I hope to eliminate skewed assumptions made from data pulled in March or April about light usage in late Aug and Sept, something probably more affected by being so far off that folks haven’t bothered yet to reserve or aren’t worried about finding available dates and EPs. So (hopefully), a similar set of calendars will be coming Apr 24, May 25, Jun 24, Jul 25, and Aug 25.
Why bother? In response, I quote a paragraph from last year’s post: “I have done this on a bit smaller scale each year, never to this extent. I do it, mostly, to satisfy my curiosity about the need to jump in on the reservation at 9:00 am on Day One. Obviously, there is always going to be a day and entry point available somewhere, but if you have your heart set on a particular date at a particular entry, some of the spots might not be there for you after the first day. Or the first hour. Take a look. Perhaps you will find something that adjusts your thinking on the popularity and availability of a particular entry point, or day, or month.”
My results for March 25, 2019 (3 weeks into the reservation period) are below. I hope you'll enjoy exploring the twenty-one pages of stats on the permits remaining at each of the 63 individual entry points and the three summary pages at the end:
Well, I’ve gotten it down to a 5- or 10-minute process to copy the information on all permits remaining on recreation.gov — 20 pages vs the 700 or so needed to compile last year’s info — and paste it into a spreadsheet that automatically sorts it by EP and creates conditionally formatted color calendars for the 153 days in the reservation season. 63 entry points x 153 dates = 9,639 numbers, representing what’s left of the 41,049 permits offered each year. (It’s actually uploading the images here and getting them into this post that takes the majority of the time…)
It went easily enough that I *hope* to offer this info each month as the season progresses, pulling the data one week before the next month begins. That way, I hope to eliminate skewed assumptions made from data pulled in March or April about light usage in late Aug and Sept, something probably more affected by being so far off that folks haven’t bothered yet to reserve or aren’t worried about finding available dates and EPs. So (hopefully), a similar set of calendars will be coming Apr 24, May 25, Jun 24, Jul 25, and Aug 25.
Why bother? In response, I quote a paragraph from last year’s post: “I have done this on a bit smaller scale each year, never to this extent. I do it, mostly, to satisfy my curiosity about the need to jump in on the reservation at 9:00 am on Day One. Obviously, there is always going to be a day and entry point available somewhere, but if you have your heart set on a particular date at a particular entry, some of the spots might not be there for you after the first day. Or the first hour. Take a look. Perhaps you will find something that adjusts your thinking on the popularity and availability of a particular entry point, or day, or month.”
My results for March 25, 2019 (3 weeks into the reservation period) are below. I hope you'll enjoy exploring the twenty-one pages of stats on the permits remaining at each of the 63 individual entry points and the three summary pages at the end:
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