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Author	Message Text
airmorse	11/16/2020 04:40PM   Thanks. This might be good for next year if the unthinkable happens again. Looks like most if not all the easy EPs were slammed.
schweady	01/23/2021 06:29PM   billconner: "maybe you've done and shared this, but I'd like to know just total number of permits in a year." Overnight Paddle permits each year? 41,049, give or take. (A few EPs aren't the same number each day and their annual totals will vary by 1 or 2 each year.)
schweady	11/16/2020 08:08PM   You got it, andy. You've already provided one of the spoilers from one of my preliminary direct comparison pages: 7,940 more permits pulled in 2020 vs 2019. What's really astounding is the increase in groups entering in September: Thursday and Friday permits in the last two weeks of September 2020 saw an average daily increase over 2019 of 180 additional groups entering on any of those 4 given days. We were on the Kawishiwi Triangle during that time, and we can attest to what that sort of unexpected surge feels like at an ordinarily very quiet time to be on the water.
andym	11/16/2020 08:12PM   Sorry for spilling the beans. But you have given some really choice bits. At this point, I am thinking that September is our best shot to travel from CA for a trip. Hearing that the triangle got crowded during that time is not great news. Fortunately, we don't mind lots of portages and so might be able to escape the crowds.
gravelroad	11/17/2020 08:04AM   Thank you for going above and beyond your previous efforts in order to reconstruct this record. Let's hope for "greener" pastures in the future. I'm an advocate for more involvement in the outdoors, but the B'Dub can't handle too many years like this past one.
outsidethebox	11/17/2020 12:12PM   Interesting...my brother-58 yrs. old and me-67 yrs old were first-timer "increasers" of the numbers. We did grow up in Northern Indiana and our nearly annual summer vacation was to Birch Point Camp on the Northwest Bay of Rainy. We also grew up bushwhacking for brookies in the UP. Relative to the over-crowding this year, as far as we know, this served us well. Being first-timers, we went fully guided. Our guide's initial plan required revision due to fully occupied camp sites. Our choices from there took us toward less travelled paths which turned into an epic brook trout experience-as my "selfie" photo shows. My only complaint regarding the fishing is that it was too easy-it really was. That for the two days we fished this lake we had it entirely to ourselves clearly demonstrated that great opportunity remains for experiencing solitude in this majestic setting. This was a mid September trip.
HighnDry	11/17/2020 02:36PM   Good work on the stats for this past season! It largely confirms what we all experience, i.e. greater traffic and higher campsite occupancy rates.
billconner	01/24/2021 07:25AM   Sorry, I think that is permits available, and I was interested in permits issued.
billconner	01/24/2021 06:13PM   Thanks! I know its not readily available data but would you guess $32/permit average is in the ballpark? 20,000 * 32 = $640000? Does not cover much.
tumblehome	01/24/2021 01:38PM   Shweady, that is a rather impressive set of data you have provided. This shows that there is a threshold where the balance tips when quotas reach a certain level. Even though no entries reached 100 filled, it shows that once you get above say, 75%, the lakes become over-crowded which people camping in the BWCA last year can attest. The other problem many people observed is the large number of base-campers on busy routes and/or entry lakes. I observed this myself on Lake Polly which is a few lakes in from Kawishiwi Lake. Even though it is not an entry lake, it's on a busy chain of lakes and was completely full at noon on a weekend. Which leads me to my next editorial. Thresholds of 75% of a quota filled are not sustainable for a wilderness experiences, once again, many people can attest too. And this means the quotas are to high at some entries and that policy changes might be needed. Multi-day base camping is not working when quotas fill up. Tom
schweady	01/24/2021 07:54PM   billconner: "Thanks! I know its not readily available data but would you guess $32/permit average is in the ballpark? 20,000 * 32 = $640000? Does not cover much." That would only be 2 people, each paying the full fee. So, no... I think that's a bit low. When our men's group of 8 goes, we pay $96... 4 at full price, 4 at half-price with our Senior Passes. When my wife and I go, we pay $24... 1 at full price, 1 at half-price with a Senior Pass. There's a $60 average, albeit with a rather small sampling. :-) Of course, 20,000 * 60 = $1,200,000 is still not a lot of money compared with the cost of doing what needs to be done.
gotwins	11/24/2020 03:59PM   I'm sure it's me, but what am I doing wrong? I click on the photo, but it doesn't take me to the spreadsheet for 2020. Am I missing the link somewhere else? Thanks for all your hard work on this!
schweady	11/25/2020 10:12AM   gotwins: "I'm sure it's me, but what am I doing wrong? I click on the photo, but it doesn't take me to the spreadsheet for 2020. Am I missing the link somewhere else? Thanks for all your hard work on this! " They are all jpg image files; no direct link to the actual Excel sheets.
gotwins	11/25/2020 10:20AM   Thanks. Must be my browser. When I click on it all I get to see is Seagull lake’s data.
billconner	01/25/2021 05:19AM   Good points. An average of 4 still seems high based on observation. I'll give you the $1.2m in permit fees. I'm sure the company that handles permits gets a nice chunk of that. Consider that several years ago just for the SNF the payment to MN entities in lieu of taxes was $5.7m. Based on BWCAW acres/USFS acres, SNF accounts for $29m but my sense is its more. Mineral and forest products income. All very broad guestimates but permits are a pittance.
OldGreyGoose	01/26/2021 07:37AM   I found out twice--August & September--that permits being readily available did NOT mean that campsites were for a "LLC Only" entry. Most campsites were full every day in Snow Bay and to the East for a ways. --Goose
KawnipiKid	01/25/2021 02:52PM   Thanks for doing this and for sharing it. It confirms what we felt in terms of 2020 mid-September big numbers out of Brule and is helpful for planning.
gotwins	11/25/2020 04:25PM   Ok, I figured it out. I thought that was one giant jpg. Turns out, it's multiples, so i need to click around on it and i'll get to see them all! Thanks schweady.
gotwins	11/25/2020 04:25PM   Ok, I figured it out. I thought that was one giant jpg. Turns out, it's multiples, so i need to click around on it and i'll get to see them all! Thanks schweady.
schweady	11/16/2020 03:32PM   It’s no secret: 2020 has been -- and continues to be -- an aberration. Anyone who has been paying any attention at all already knows how this affected most of our BWCAW trip experiences. Throngs of folks, perhaps with newly-found time on their hands or a desire to socially distance in the most extreme manner possible (perhaps both), checked off that trip to the Boundary Waters that’s been on their bucket list for a while. Or, maybe, just headed out on a whim. Discouraging outcomes were the result, from the increased numbers of permits taken, to the increase in numbers of travelers encountered, to the oddest newbie behaviors, to the most discouraging Leave No Trace violations observed. This year’s permit study wasn’t going to happen. I had been pleased with the completion of a very comprehensive report for 2019, and wasn’t sure what else was to be learned from compiling data from additional years. In mid-summer, when this year’s numbers started going off of the charts and online chatter seemed to include daily accounting of the same, I regretted not beginning a direct comparison study. Usually, there is no going back in time on recreation.gov to look at previous dates and associated numbers of permits taken, and I figured that it was too late to start. But, this is 2020, and I found a rabbit hole. So, I decided to jump back in. The grid of permit numbers was easily copied. I figured that my templates were all set, and plugging in the new data and having it spit out the results would be a piece of cake. This was true, but only to a certain extent. Enter 2020, which introduced just enough quirks to provide some challenges in making perfectly direct comparisons: * reservations didn’t begin until May 18th, reducing the season from 153 to 136 days * the Canadian border remained closed all summer, meaning that those 'From Canada' permits went totally unused * the 'Bog Lake' permits appeared to go from an every-other-day system in 2019 to one permit per day in 2020, at least in the online grid of remaining numbers * the ordinary shift in days of the week upon which given calendar dates land each year presented some trickier-than-expected spreadsheet formulae gymnastics But, enough blather... Here are the numbers -- in calendar format -- which show how many permits remained unclaimed after reservations were pulled for each of the 136 days in the 2020 reservation season. 63 entry points x 136 dates = 8,568 numbers representing the 36,584 permits offered during the year. 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: I have started working on a sheet (that may possibly be interesting enough to post sometime soon) making a full comparison between 2019 and 2020. For now, you can do your own looking back and forth between here and my 2019 findings.
MackinawTrout	11/29/2020 04:46PM   schweady: "You got it, andy. You've already provided one of the spoilers from one of my preliminary direct comparison pages: 7,940 more permits pulled in 2020 vs 2019. What's really astounding is the increase in groups entering in September: Thursday and Friday permits in the last two weeks of September 2020 saw an average daily increase over 2019 of 180 additional groups entering on any of those 4 given days. We were on the Kawishiwi Triangle during that time, and we can attest to what that sort of unexpected surge feels like at an ordinarily very quiet time to be on the water. " What is the "Kawishiwi Triangle " ? I have an Idea but ??
Aldy1	11/17/2020 08:27AM   Thank you, Schweady! I have used your permit study many times while planning for trips.
schweady	11/29/2020 06:11PM   MackinawTrout: "What is the "Kawishiwi Triangle " ? I have an Idea but ??" A popular route roughly formed by the Kawishiwi and North Kawishiwi Rivers across the northern side, and the South Kawishiwi River and Clear Lake along the bottom SE and SW sides of the triangle. Doable in a single day trip, but it also provides several decent campsites. Many spots hold some good fishing, especially at any of the several small rapids along the way.
andym	11/16/2020 05:46PM   Thanks for doing this work. Here are some basic comparisons: In 2019 45% of the permits were reserved and in 2020 it went up to 72%. The total number of reserved permits went from 18,358 to 26,298. That represents an increase of almost 8000 more permits and a 43% increase in usage over a slightly shorter season.
johnMN	01/25/2021 08:27PM   Hey, Schweady - thanks for all your work on this, again! This is really great information in so many ways. The Forest Service, if they haven't used their information in a similar way, should be glomming on to this! Thanks.
schweady	01/24/2021 03:45PM   billconner: "Sorry, I think that is permits available, and I was interested in permits issued." 2019 Number of permits reserved: 18,358 out of 41,049 (May 1-Sep 30) Percent reserved: 45% 2020 Number of permits reserved: 26,298 out of 36,584 (May 18-Sep 30) Percent reserved: 72%
billconner	01/23/2021 02:54PM   maybe you've done and shared this, but I'd like to know just total number of permits in a year.
schweady	01/25/2021 11:26AM   billconner: "...I'm sure the company that handles permits gets a nice chunk of that..." I assume that they get the $6 reservation fee, so 20,000 * 6 = $120,000. billconner: "...permits are a pittance. " Agreed.
plander	01/23/2021 12:11PM   Are there data that indicate the percentage of overnight motor vs paddle permits for EP25? I’m curious if anyone has a sense of how much of the usage of EP 25 ends up on Knife Lake, amount of fishing pressure on Knife/SAK, etc.
schweady	01/23/2021 01:06PM   plander - That is something I always meant to do but haven't ever taken the time. It actually took me until just a couple of years back to completely understand how the weekly motor permit allotment worked. I just now grabbed the raw data for 2020 OM permits... Clearwater Lake, East Bearskin, Saganaga Lake, Seagull Lake, Fall Lake, Farm Lake, Moose Lake, Snowbank Lake, Lac LaCroix Only, Little Vermilion Lake, Trout Lake... I'll try to put it into readable form soon.