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The Yosemite Big Wall Permit System: Impact and Logistics

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  • American Alpine ClubA

    Yosemite's iconic granite walls draw climbers, hikers, and outdoor recreationists from all over the world. Big wall climbers spend long days on El Cap and Half Dome above the valley floor, attempting free ascents or classic aid climbs. Due to the park's growing popularity, reservations and permit systems have been implemented. Climbing is no exception. 
    In 2021, Yosemite NPS began a two-year big wall permit system pilot program in hopes it would help climbing rangers understand patterns on the wall and minimize negative impacts on the landscape through education. In January 2023, the permit program became permanent, and now all climbers staying overnight on big walls are required to have a permit. 
    As with everything in the climbing community, there has been a lot of discourse surrounding this, as seen on Reddit and Mountain Project threads over the past couple of years. Climbers speculated: Would the rangers be enforcing a quota? Would these permits be available 24/7, or would reservations need to be made in advance? Would climbers have to use the dreaded recreation.gov?
    Through the permit system, big wall permits are free and available for climbers to self-register 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, near the El Capitan Bridge at a kiosk near the food lockers. There is no quota for routes. 
    In addition to timed permits, during peak hours (6 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Memorial Day weekend, any day between June 15 and August 15, or Labor Day weekend), climbers must make reservations to enter the park. This is a timed entry reservation that is also used at other parks, such as Zion National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Arches National Park, allowing the park to regulate the influx of visitors. 
    There is no formal check-in with the rangers after climbing (or bailing). Yosemite climbing rangers and stewards use the information they gather from the permit system to update an Instagram account that reports on big wall traffic. The Instagram's daily posts include information for the number of people on popular climbs like Freerider/Salathe, Zodiac, and Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome. 
    "It is a work in progress, but we are trying to find a sustainable way to get that information out to climbers so that people can disperse from crowded routes if they want," said Yosemite Climbing Ranger Cameron King. The feedback the rangers have received on the account has been positive.  
    Below, we've created a guide to help you navigate your next Yosemite trip filled with all the fine print and details to minimize route finding off the wall.

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    The Yosemite Big Wall Permit System: Impact and Logistics — American Alpine Club

    Climbers and other visitors who plan on entering Yosemite National Park between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. from June 15 thru August 15, 2025, or during Memorial and Labor Day weekends, will require reservations. Visitors holding a Half Dome or wilderness permit, in-park camping or lodging reservations, or en

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    American Alpine Club (americanalpineclub.org)

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    The Line—Reward and Risk on Kaqur Kangri

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    American Alpine ClubA
    Three teams will be honored with Piolets d’Or in Italy this December, and all three contributed feature articles about their climbs to the 2025 American Alpine Journal (AAJ). Tom Livingstone wrote about his and Aleš Česen’s new route on Gasherbrum III in Pakistan; Dane Steadman described the first ascent of Yashkuk Sar, also in Pakistan, with August Franzen and Cody Winckler; and Spencer Gray told the story of climbing the southwest arête of Kaqur Kangri in Nepal with Ryan Griffiths. There’s a lot to love about Spencer’s AAJ piece —it documents an amazing ascent. But we were also struck by the final passage, in which he reflects on the inherent and sometimes insidious risks of Himalayan alpinism. No one got hurt on the climb of 6,859-meter Kaqur Kangri, but afterward Spencer tallied 20-plus minor incidents that each could have ended very badly. Honest self-assessments like this are essential to a long life in the mountains, so we’ve shared Spencer’s thoughts here for readers to consider in light of their own climbing. Objectives like the southwest arête of Kaqur Kangri used to be what most climbing was: trying something kind of hard, an inconvenient distance from home, and relying on imagination as much as effort to turn a thing dreamt into a thing done. There are still plenty of places to contrive that same experience. We just have to look harder—and be willing to court risk in an unpredictable operating environment.  Our team didn’t have what we’d consider a close call, but in debriefing, I still counted 23 discrete times when the risk ticked up. A mule nearly broke my knee with a kick when I tried to bring it into camp one morning. On our first day of climbing, we hustled up a ramp that was probably at the outside edge of the ricochet zone of the upper serac band. Two days later, Ryan [Griffiths] and I both simultaneously realized that we were pushing our unroped luck on low-angle but hard-frozen talus above the west face. “If we slip here, it’s to the bottom, eh?” I said. Of four minor rockfall incidents, we mitigated two by our choice of protected belays and bivvies. Another was friendly fire: On rappel, I chucked a baseball-sized rock so the ropes wouldn’t dislodge it. But I misaimed, and the rock bounced down the snow slope and nailed Ryan in the shoulder. I reasoned that Ryan had probably done something in a prior life to deserve getting punched in the clavicle. He was less sure. On day three, below the snowfield, we pulled through suspended, stacked blocks in a roof that would have chopped the rope had they dislodged. On the upper headwall, my ice tool tethers got tangled behind a cam after I had campused out a diagonal rail. I couldn’t reverse the move, and I couldn’t continue until I had unthreaded the tools. Half growling, half screaming, I locked off on one arm, frontpoints screeching, and freed myself. When he followed, Ryan simply lowered out and jugged.  On the descent, Ryan and I had probably our riskiest moment when we crossed a 40-foot-wide wind slab partway down the upper northwest face. It appeared suddenly, a shallow pocket of cross-loaded danger in an otherwise stable snowpack. The tension on the slope and the soft, hollow thump as our boots and ice tools pressed through the snow put us both on edge. But with no other signs of failure or propagation, and a morning of downclimbing a similar aspect and angle above us, we each judged it safe enough to proceed. An hour before we regained the base of the mountain, fed up with navigating the messy corners of the final glacier, we briefly but obtusely committed to soloing steep glacial ice, embedded with crushed pebbles, as we traversed 15 feet above the bottom of a closed crevasse. We were spurred on by our friend Matt’s tiny light in the distance and the promise of fresh Snickers. Perhaps a week on the mountain and the tedious descent had dulled our nose for risk.  Three days later, we stopped at Chyargo La on the trek back out and took in our final view of Kaqur. I crouched beneath fluttering prayer flags to lounge against a rock, my fingers getting sticky pulling globs of gulab jamun out of a can we’d saved until now for a treat. Kaqur’s summit seracs glinted in the midday sun from what seemed like a very long ways away. Matt and Ryan laughed as I passed them the can for a shot of syrup to wash it all down. https://americanalpineclub.org/news/2025/11/18/the-linereward
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    GrippedG
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  • GrippedG

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    GrippedG
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    GrippedG
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    GrippedG
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    RaykoR
    Some history about boulder #climbing grades. From easy, all the way to unforgiving nightmare xD V17 looks absolutely nuts.Not sure if I learnt anything new about grades, other than lower V is easy and higher V is difficult though lol Some of the middle blocks in the scale look somewhat similar to me.https://youtu.be/DnvpYvzbcg8?si=mA06GWeeA_gApGtL
  • ClimbingZineC

    Arno’s Dragon by Devin Dabney (a poem)

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    ClimbingZineC
    Long before we decide, the path is carved for us. Sliced through existence to be forged for this one, and beyond. The goals we strive for in this life, the roles we thrive in, the roads we stride on, all to guide us through the night of our own inner selves, as we run from… https://climbingzine.com/arnos-dragon-by-devin-dabney-a-poem/