The Half Dome lottery is the only way to get on the cables, and it runs twice: a big preseason draw in March that covers the whole season, and a daily draw two days before each date for whatever is left over. Most people should enter both.
Here is how each one works, and what your realistic odds are.
The preseason lottery, in March
The preseason lottery opens on 1 March and stays open through the month. You apply on recreation.gov, and the draw happens after it closes, so there is no advantage whatsoever to applying on the first morning rather than the last.
You give up to seven preferred dates on one application, and you name a trip leader. That flexibility is the whole game: an application with seven midweek dates in September behaves very differently from one asking for a single Saturday in July.
The card on this page carries the exact dates for the coming season and will email you before the window opens, which is the failure mode that costs most people a year.
The daily lottery, two days out
Whatever goes unused comes back into a daily lottery two days before each hiking date. Applications are taken the day before that, and you find out that evening.
This is far better than it sounds. Permits get returned, plans change, and weather scares people off. If you are already in California with flexible days, the daily draw is a genuine second chance rather than a consolation prize. It rewards people who can move their date by 48 hours.
Your actual odds
| When you want to go | Rough odds | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Midweek, September or October | Best | Fewest applicants, and the weather is excellent |
| Midweek, June | Good | Long days, and the crowd has not arrived |
| Weekend, July or August | Poor | Everyone applies for exactly these dates |
| Any Saturday | Worst | The single most requested day of the week |
Published preseason success rates sit somewhere in the region of 20 to 30 percent overall, and that number hides an enormous spread. A weekend in high summer is far worse than that; a Tuesday in late September is far better.
Five things that improve your chances
- Use all seven date slots. People routinely enter one date and then treat losing as bad luck.
- Ask for midweek. This is the single biggest lever, and it costs you nothing but a day off.
- Apply for the smallest group you can. Larger parties need more permits from the same pool.
- Have several people in the group apply for the same dates as trip leader, on separate applications. Each is drawn independently. Note that only one may be used, so the others must be cancelled.
- Enter the daily lottery too, even if you won the preseason draw for a different date. It costs very little.
What it costs
There is a small non-refundable application fee to enter, and a per-person fee if you are awarded a permit. Neither is large enough to be a reason not to apply, and the application fee is charged whether you win or not.
You also need a park entrance pass on top, which is separate from the permit.
If you do not get one
The hike to the base of the Sub Dome needs no permit and is a serious day out on its own: most of the distance, most of the climbing, and the view down the valley. Permits are only checked at the bottom of the Sub Dome.
Or go to Clouds Rest, which is higher than Half Dome, needs no permit at all, and looks straight down at it.
