Which JMT permit lottery should you enter?
Apply for Lyell Canyon, not Happy Isles. Yosemite's own lottery statistics show twice the spaces for half the demand — plus the two other levers that actually move your odds.
Sources last verified
Apply for Lyell Canyon, not Happy Isles. Lyell has 18 lottery spaces a day against Happy Isles’ 9, and roughly half the demand — close to four times the shot on the ratio that matters. Fill all eight choices, because 45% of winning applications won on something other than their first, and start outside mid-July to mid-August if your dates can move.
Most people enter the John Muir Trail lottery the same way: one trailhead, one start date, the trailhead everybody has heard of. That is the single worst application you can send.
Yosemite publishes four years of its own lottery statistics, and they say three useful things. This page is what they say, and what to do about it.
The verdict
Apply for Lyell Canyon, fill all eight choices, and avoid the middle of summer. Those three moves are independent of each other, they cost you almost nothing, and each one is backed by the park’s own numbers rather than by trail forum folklore.
If you only change one thing, change the trailhead.
Why Lyell Canyon
Only two Yosemite trailheads let you walk south over Donohue Pass, so the “which trailhead” question has exactly two answers. They are not close.
| Happy Isles (option A) | Lyell Canyon (option B) | |
|---|---|---|
| Spaces in the lottery, per day | 9 | 18 |
| Spaces in the week-ahead release, per day | 6 | 12 |
| Requests per year, all choices | about 24,000 | about 13,500 |
| Roughly, requests per lottery space | ~2,700 | ~750 |
Same trail, same permit, same Donohue Pass. Lyell Canyon has double the spaces and a little over half the demand. On the ratio that matters, it is close to four times the shot.
Happy Isles is the most requested trailhead in Yosemite, every year from 2022 to 2025. It is also the one with the smallest Donohue-eligible quota in the park. That combination is why people who “always apply and never get it” always apply and never get it.
Lyell Canyon starts at Tuolumne Meadows. You give up the Yosemite Valley opening — Happy Isles, Vernal and Nevada Falls, and the climb past Little Yosemite Valley — which is roughly the first day and a half of the classic route.
It also costs you the shoulder seasons. Lyell Canyon is a Tioga Road trailhead, so reservations only run from about mid-June to mid-October. Happy Isles opens in late April. If your dates are in May, Lyell is not an option at all.
The other two lotteries
Yosemite is not the only door. Two more exist, and they are different games.
| Option | What it is | Spaces per day | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Happy Isles, southbound | 15 total, 9 by lottery | The most contested permit on the trail |
| B | Lyell Canyon, southbound | 30 total, 18 by lottery | No Yosemite Valley, and no early season |
| C | Mt Whitney Trail, northbound | 60 overnight | 14,505 ft on day one or two, with no time to acclimatise |
| D–G | The four eastern side doors | none published | Not the complete trail — you get a section |
Option C is the quietly interesting one. Sixty overnight spaces a day is four times Happy Isles and double Lyell, and it runs on a completely separate annual lottery at a different agency. The altitude is a real risk rather than a matter of taste, which is why it is not the headline verdict — but if you are already acclimatised, or you can build in days to get there, the arithmetic is much friendlier than the reputation suggests.
Happy Isles trailhead · Yosemite National Park
southbound · 15 people per day · the complete trail, walked end to end from the valley floor
- Yosemite rolling lottery opensOpens 24 weeks before your start date · 09:00 America/Los_Angeles
- Yosemite seven-day releaseOpens seven days before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
Tuolumne Meadows · Yosemite National Park
southbound · 30 people per day · twice the daily quota, at the cost of the Yosemite Valley stretch
- Yosemite rolling lottery opensOpens 24 weeks before your start date · 09:00 America/Los_Angeles
- Yosemite seven-day releaseOpens seven days before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
Whitney Portal · Inyo National Forest
northbound · 60 people per day · a different lottery entirely — at the cost of 14,505 ft on day one
- Mt Whitney lottery applications openPublished date
- Mt Whitney lottery results postedPublished date
- Mt Whitney awards must be claimedPublished date
- Unclaimed Mt Whitney dates releasedPublished date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
Onion Valley · Inyo National Forest
southbound · the shortest walk in to the JMT, and the one every bail-out plan already names
- Inyo six-month releaseOpens six months before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
- Inyo two-week releaseOpens two weeks before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
South Lake · Inyo National Forest
southbound · the middle of the trail, reached from the town with the most beds
- Inyo six-month releaseOpens six months before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
- Inyo two-week releaseOpens two weeks before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
North Lake · Inyo National Forest
southbound · the northernmost eastside door, and the longest stretch of trail below it
- Inyo six-month releaseOpens six months before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
- Inyo two-week releaseOpens two weeks before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
Taboose Creek · Inyo National Forest
southbound · the one that is usually still available, because of what it costs to walk in
- Inyo six-month releaseOpens six months before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
- Inyo two-week releaseOpens two weeks before your start date · 07:00 America/Los_Angeles
Pick each one if…
Pick Lyell Canyon (B) if you want the best odds on a southbound trip and can live without the Valley opening. This is the right answer for most people and it is the one almost nobody picks first.
Pick Happy Isles (A) if walking the complete route from the Valley floor is the point of the trip for you, or your dates are in the spring before Tioga Road opens. Go in knowing what you are up against, and fill the other seven choices with something you would actually walk.
Pick Whitney (C) if you are already acclimatised, you would rather finish in Yosemite Valley than start there, and you can commit to a single application window months ahead with no second chance that season.
Pick a side door (D–G) if a section of the trail you can definitely walk beats a complete trail you probably cannot. These are separate Inyo entries on their own clocks, and they are covered in what to do when you didn’t get a permit.
How to play the lottery you picked
Lever 1 — use all eight choices
A Yosemite application takes up to eight options, and the park publishes which choice its winners actually won on.
| Choice | Share of winning applications |
|---|---|
| 1st | about 55% |
| 2nd | about 17% |
| 3rd | about 11% |
| 4th | about 7% |
| 5th–8th | about 11% between them |
Roughly 45% of all successful applications won on something other than their first choice. That shape has barely moved from 2022 to 2025. An application with one option on it throws away close to half its chances for free.
Fill all eight. Use different start dates, both Donohue-eligible trailheads, and dates either side of the week you first thought of. Just do not list anything you would be unhappy to be awarded — a win you decline is a win you did not get.
Lever 2 — move off peak summer
Yosemite runs a separate lottery for each week of start dates, and it publishes the success rate of every one. The pattern is the same in all four years:
- Mid-July through mid-August: roughly a third of applications succeed.
- Late September and October: commonly 75% or better.
- Late spring runs high too, where the trailhead is even open.
Shifting your start by two or three weeks does more for your odds than any trick with the form. Late September on the JMT means cold nights, short days and a real chance of early snow — that is the trade, and when to hike the JMT is where it is argued properly.
Lever 3 — know which week you are applying in, because you don’t choose it
This is the one people get wrong. The lottery week is fixed by your start date, not by when you apply. Every week of start dates has its own separate lottery, opening 24 weeks ahead. Pick your dates and the week picks itself.
So there is no clever week to enter, and no advantage to applying early inside the window — how the weekly cycle runs is set out with the rest of the rules. What there is instead:
- Anything the lottery does not award goes first-come, first-served from about 22 weeks out until eight days before your start. Most people never look at this window, and it is open for months.
- The other 40% of the quota is released seven days ahead at 7am Pacific. That is a second, separate shot at the same permit.
Losing the lottery costs you 60% of the inventory, not all of it.
Yosemite says it plainly on its own statistics page: the figures give you a sense of which lotteries and trailheads have lower or higher odds, but they do not necessarily predict this year’s success rate. Demand moves. Treat everything above as a way to place a better bet, not as a guarantee.
The Whitney lottery is a different game
If you go for option C, almost none of the advice above transfers.
- It is one annual window, not a weekly cycle. Applications open February 1 to March 1, results are posted March 15, awards must be claimed April 21, and unclaimed dates are released April 22.
- You may list up to ten alternate trip choices on one application, so lever 1 applies harder here than it does in Yosemite.
- One application per group or household. Inyo says that submitting more than one may get all of them rejected. Do not try to buy extra entries.
- Claiming an award costs $15 per person, on top of everything else.
Miss that single window and there is no second lottery that season — only the release of unclaimed dates, and the ordinary side doors.
Your dates, in the order you will meet them
Tell it when you want to start and which way you are walking.
Pick a start date above and this becomes your dated list, in order, with the link to book each one. Until then the reservation windows above state every rule in full.
If it doesn’t work
It often doesn’t. Roughly 42% of Yosemite applications succeed in a given year, which means the majority do not, and that has been steady for four years.
A lottery loss is one tranche at one trailhead, and there are four more ways onto this trail. You didn’t get a permit. Now what? is the page for that day, and it is worth reading before you apply rather than after — knowing your fallback is what lets you use all eight choices without flinching.
Regulations, quotas and fees change every season. Confirm anything time-sensitive with the managing agency before you rely on it.