Plan the John Muir Trail without guessing which permit you need.

Pick your trip (full JMT, a classic section, the High Sierra Trail crossing, or your own entry and exit), your date window, party size, and pace. The Trip Builder returns the viable permit combinations ranked by how gettable they are, shows each agency's release timing, and can set up Permit Ranger watching across every required permit in one click.

How the Trip Builder decides

Every JMT itinerary is covered by exactly one wilderness permit: the one issued by the agency that manages your starting trailhead. The builder maps each entry to its permit and quota division across four systems (Yosemite, Inyo National Forest, Sierra National Forest, and Sequoia & Kings Canyon), then ranks the combinations using the demand data Permit Ranger collects from watching those quotas every day, easiest first.

For each combination you see the required permit and issuing agency, when that agency releases quota (lotteries, rolling windows, and last-minute drops), an honest feasibility read, and the plain-language rules that trip people up.

The rules people get wrong

Entering via Yosemite covers your whole trip; you do not need a separate Inyo permit for a JMT-standard itinerary.

A southbound thru-hike that exits at Whitney Portal includes the Mount Whitney summit. You never enter the February Whitney lottery; you just confirm the Whitney Zone exit when booking.

Northbound hikers finish in Yosemite on their Inyo permit with nothing extra to book, but only a Yosemite-issued permit with a qualifying Valley itinerary can add Half Dome cables access.

Half Dome is an add-on to a Yosemite wilderness permit (its own small daily backpacker quota), not a separate lottery entry for JMT hikers.

Why watch a combination instead of one permit

The trailheads that reach your route are managed by different agencies with different release schedules: Yosemite runs a weekly lottery plus a 7-day-out drop, Inyo opens six months ahead with a 14-day-out drop, and Sierra and SEKI have their own calendars. Watching all viable entries at once means a cancellation at any of them, in any system, triggers the same alert. No other service bundles multi-agency watching like this.

Frequently asked questions

Does the Trip Builder book permits for me?

No. Permit Ranger never books or holds inventory. The builder tells you which permits work for your trip and watches them; when a date opens you get an alert with a direct recreation.gov booking link.

Can it plan the Pacific Crest Trail or other long trails?

Not yet. The PCT's long-distance permit and its thru-hiker exemptions work differently, so this builder is scoped to the John Muir Trail and its classic sections.

Where do the feasibility ratings come from?

From Permit Ranger's own demand data: how quickly each entry's quota actually fills across the season, weighted toward how far ahead it sells out. Entries we are still collecting data for are labeled as such.