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Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: Trip Planning Forum :: BWCAW permit availability study July 25, 2019
 
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JackpineJim
04/28/2020 10:15AM
 
30Smoke: "Schweady, Thanks for doing these studies, really helps to see if a permit needs to be reserved early! Appreciate your efforts, you would think recreation.gov could provide historical data - but your data is GREAT!"


I second that, Hat tip to you, Schweady!
 
30Smoke
04/28/2020 09:57AM
 
Schweady, Thanks for doing these studies, really helps to see if a permit needs to be reserved early! Appreciate your efforts, you would think recreation.gov could provide historical data - but your data is GREAT!
 
minnmike
08/08/2019 02:07PM
 
Thanks for posting this schweady it's interesting to see when and where a person may want to avoid and vise versa.
 
jillpine
08/10/2019 11:25AM
 
minnmike: " Thanks for posting this schweady it's interesting to see when and where a person may want to avoid and vise versa."
+1
 
jillpine
08/10/2019 11:20AM
 
Thanks, schweady. It's really interesting and helpful information. I'm surprised at some of the numbers. It's interesting to see the sea of green in September in spite of comments saying how September is so busy now. Some places are but many are virtually empty according to these data. I didn't quite follow your third-from-last page. The lower the number, the redder the box? Is this permits left unclaimed?
 
schweady
08/07/2019 02:57PM
 
Fifth in a monthly series

Yes, I am late posting this message, but the numbers were collected on time - July 25th. Some canoeing and other outdoor activity got in the way. :-)

Here is the latest set of numbers showing the permits remaining for the 153 days in the reservation season. 63 entry points x 153 dates = 9,639 numbers representing the 41,049 permits offered each year.

This data was collected one week before the beginning of the month of August. To provide some consistency, I freeze in place the numbers for each of the previous months as collected one week before that month's start. In the end, the study will wind up displaying the number of permits remaining for each of the reservation months at a consistent point — one week prior to its onset.

I plan to present one final monthly snapshot of permits remaining on Aug 25.

The rationale for the study may be found in previous installments for 2019:

BWCAW Permit Availability Study June 24, 2019

BWCAW Permit Availability Study May 25, 2019

BWCAW Permit Availability Study April 24, 2019

BWCAW Permit Availability Study March 25, 2019

So, here are the results for July 25, 2019 (20+ weeks into the reservation period). 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:



 
schweady
08/07/2019 03:34PM
 
One thing that really jumps out is the traffic jam on those first 9 days of August... 9 of the top 12 busiest days for the entire season in terms of permits taken. And I hope that you didn't arrive for that 'wherever' trip on August 1st... Thursdays have consistently been the most popular entry day and on this particular Thursday, there were only 31 permits available for walk-up (out of the 270 originally offered) and you'd have to make your choice among just 10 of the 63 EPs.

 
schweady
08/10/2019 12:42PM
 
jillpine: "...It's interesting to see the sea of green in September in spite of comments saying how September is so busy now. Some places are but many are virtually empty according to these data..."
That may change a bit with the collection of next month's data. That report will be the last -- and most accurate -- picture of use for the entire season.

jillpine: "...I didn't quite follow your third-from-last page. The lower the number, the redder the box? Is this permits left unclaimed?"
Correct. The number indicates how many permits are left. I realize that my wording on those pages is not completely clear.