How to get alerts for river permit cancellations

It’s autumn, and temperatures are dipping. So, you probably aren’t looking for a river permit now. However, some will start looking for river permits in a few months. If you’re one of those folks, you might need some help—as river permits sell out wickedly fast. Following are some notes that might prove helpful.

How to set up your river permit scan

Scanning for permit cancellations isn’t anything special. You can do so on your own by periodically checking the booking system to see if something has opened up. If you prefer to save that bother, our service offers a nice convenience. It’ll check the booking site for you 24/7. The system will alert you via text message if a permit becomes available.

To start your scan, visit our homepage and enter the park name where you plan to go rafting. Then, find the appropriate permits under the Campgrounds list. (I know it’s weird to have permits listed under Campgrounds, but our service was built around campsites, with permit scanning added later.) If there’s a specific permit you’re looking for, you can select “Specific permits” to filter out anything other than what you’re interested in. Please note that filtering requires a membership.

From there, you can follow the remaining steps as they are presented. These include selecting your arrival date, entering your phone number, choosing how you’d like to use Campnab, and opting for your preferred service tier. Once you have all that done, you can save your scan, and it’ll work on your behalf.

Challenges associated with river permit alerts

We don’t send nearly as many alerts for canceled river permits as we do for canceled campsites. Relatively few permits are available in the first place, which results in fewer cancellations. So, despite our service helping many folks find river permits, these are harder to pick up than other backcountry and campsite openings.

Additionally, when river permits get canceled, you’ll compete with many others for those availabilities. These include recreational rafters, experienced river runners, and commercial operators. The number of folks fighting for these permits means that most newly canceled permit reservations will be rebooked quickly.

Some experienced river runners are unhappy about permit scarcity and believe that less experienced paddlers shouldn’t have the same access to these permits. So, some give their friends a heads-up when they intend to cancel. From what we’ve seen, these permits are held for a bit before they are re-released. As such, permit holders can’t time the release of their permit just so that a friend gets it. Nevertheless, some will be poised to act, as they’ll have a heads-up that a permit is set to be released within the next few hours.

We also see occasional false alerts for river rafting permits. These sometimes pop-up a few hours before permits become available for booking. We also see some rare availability flickering on these permits. These certainly aren’t common with river permits, but they do occur from time to time.

What Campnab doesn’t do

Some folks mistakenly create scans hoping to have an advantage on opening morning when permits are initially released. I must stress that Campnab offers no such advantage. On launch day, permits tend to get booked within seconds, often in between scans. So, your best bet at that time is to be on the booking site, ready to click Reserve the very moment that permit becomes available.

A few others think that we can hold a permit for them or book a permit on their behalf. This belief is also inaccurate. All our service does is notify you of available permits. What happens after that is entirely up to you. So, how you set up your scans and how you respond to alerts can make a significant difference in whether you’re successful in booking a river permit.

Putting the odds in your favor

When creating your river permit scans, opt for a scan tier that checks the booking system as frequently as possible. I commonly recommend our Awesome tier for monitoring river permits as it checks quite frequently (every 1 – 4 minutes, depending on the permit). Given how quickly these permits rebook, higher scan frequency can make a notable difference.

I generally recommend monitoring as broad a series of dates as possible to increase the probability of spotting a cancellation. On the Awesome tier, you can run up to 7 scans simultaneously, each of which can monitor a range of up to 7 days. On this tier, you could monitor a permit for a window of up to 49 days.

Other tips that can give you a little edge include setting a custom ringtone, as these are great prompts to act fast. If you use do-not-disturb hours or Focus mode on your phone, go to Allow Notifications and add Campnab. This will ensure that you receive alerts even in the middle of the night, which can give you a little edge.

One last tip: If you work at a computer all day, be sure to have a messaging app running on that machine. Responding to alerts on your computer tends to be faster than navigating the booking system’s mobile interface.

River permits we monitor for cancellations

Following are the river permits that you can use Campnab to scan for cancellations. Feel free to click through on any of the provided links to start creating a scan:

• Brooks River Corridor Group 7 Day Permits
• Canyonlands Day Use and Overnight River Permits
• Desolation Gray Green River Permits
• Dinosaur Green And Yampa River Permits (Deerlodge Park, Yampa River, Gates of Lodore, Green River)
• John Day Wild And Scenic River Permits
• Middle Fork Of The Salmon 4 Rivers, and Salmon River 4 Rivers Permits
• Rio Chama Wild And Scenic River Permits
• Ruby Horsethief Canyon Permits
• Westwater Canyon of the Colorado River Permits

Campnab doesn’t monitor all river permits

Rogue Wild Scenic River permits are different from other permits. It appears that BLM won’t be releasing canceled permits on rec.gov. Instead, I think these will be made available in person, on-site, through a separate system not linked to rec.gov. So, we can’t monitor those ones.

Photo courtesy of Jackalope West

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