Rae Lakes Loop Permit: How to Get One for 2027

Which permit you need for the Rae Lakes Loop

Any night on the Rae Lakes Loop needs a Sequoia and Kings Canyon wilderness permit. It is the same permit the park uses for every overnight trip, and between late May and late September it comes with a daily trailhead quota. Day hikes don't need one.

The loop is 41.4 miles from Roads End in Cedar Grove, starting at 5,035 feet and topping out at Glen Pass, 11,978 feet. The Park Service's own description of its permit system names the Rae Lakes Loop as one of the routes with "high demand for limited entry", next to the John Muir Trail and Mount Whitney.

The Rae Lakes Loop trailhead: Woods Creek or Bubbs Creek

Both directions start at the same trailhead, Roads End, at the end of the road through Cedar Grove. You park there and pick up the permit at the Roads End station. On recreation.gov, though, the loop is two different entry points, and the one you pick fixes your direction.

Woods Creek is the clockwise start, which recreation.gov calls the easier direction. You walk up Paradise Valley first and come over Glen Pass from the north. Bubbs Creek is the counterclockwise start, steep to the Sphinx Creek junction and then a steady climb toward Vidette Meadow.

This is the detail people get wrong. A Woods Creek permit does not let you start the loop counterclockwise, and a Bubbs Creek permit does not let you start it clockwise. Each entry point has its own quota of 25 people a day, 20 reservable, so if one direction is full on your date, look at the other before you give up on the date.

Party size is capped at 15 people on trail, and a group that size takes most of a day's quota at one entry point.

When Rae Lakes Loop permits open

There is no lottery. Reservations run on a rolling window from six months to one week before your entry date, and each new date is released at 7:00 AM Pacific. A permit for a July 10 start becomes bookable on the morning six months before it, and not a day earlier.

Recreation.gov lists the 2027 quota season as May 28 to September 25, 2027, with 2027 reservations opening November 28, 2026. That first morning releases May 28 only. Every morning after it, one more day of summer comes up.

Two things can't be changed after you book: the entry date and the entry point. You can change the exit date and your nightly camps later, so book the start you need and sort the camps afterwards.

Sign up for the permit alert and we'll email you two weeks before reservations open and again the morning they do. Then pick the morning your own start date comes up and be on recreation.gov at 7:00 AM Pacific.

What the permit costs

$15 per trip plus $5 per person, the same whether you reserve or walk up. Cancel or shrink your group more than a week before the start and the $5 per person comes back. Inside a week, nothing is refunded. Outside the quota season the permit is free and self-issued, with no daily limit.

Picking up your permit at Roads End

The email from recreation.gov is a confirmation, not a permit, and you can't camp on it. A ranger issues the permit in person at Roads End, from 1:00 PM the day before your entry date until 10:00 AM on the day. There is no night drop. Bring the printed confirmation and photo ID, and bring the whole group, because everyone has to attend the orientation.

If you can't make it by 10:00 AM, call the Wilderness Office at 559-565-3766 before then. If you don't, the reservation is cancelled at 10:00 AM and your places go to walk-ups.

Walk-up permits and no-shows

Five of the 25 daily places at each entry point can't be reserved. Walk-up permits are issued from 1:00 PM the day before the trip starts, at Roads End, during opening hours. Once the walk-up places are gone, rangers start a list, and any reserved party that hasn't collected by 10:00 AM loses its places to the people on it.

That makes a walk-up a real plan for a flexible weekday, and a weak one for a fixed Saturday in July. If you try it, be at Roads End when the desk opens at 1:00 PM, have a second entry point in mind, and have a plan for the night if neither works out.

Rules that come with the permit

• A bear canister is required from May 1 to October 31 in the Woods Creek and Bubbs Creek drainages. The park says bears on this trail have taken hung food, and the metal food boxes along the route are for John Muir Trail and Pacific Crest Trail thru-hikers only.
• Two nights at most in Paradise Valley, at Charlotte Lake and at Kearsarge Lakes. One night per lake in the Rae Lakes area, from Dollar Lake to Glen Pass.
• Designated sites only in Lower Paradise Valley. No camping at Mist Falls, and none within a quarter mile of Bullfrog Lake.
• No campfires above 10,000 feet.
• No dogs on any park trail.

Rae Lakes Loop map: miles from Roads End

These are the park's own distances from Roads End in each direction, and they're what you plan your camps around. Rae Lakes sit a little past half way clockwise and a little under half way counterclockwise. Carry a printed map as well.

Conditions that decide which dates are worth booking

A permit for late May can be a permit for a trip you can't finish. The bridge over the South Fork of the Kings River above Paradise Valley washed out in the winter of 2016 to 2017, and the park says a replacement will not start before 2027. Fording there can be extremely hazardous, and in a big snow year the crossing may not be possible until some time in July. Start from Bubbs Creek and find it impassable, and you may have to walk back the way you came to reach Cedar Grove.

Glen Pass can stay impassable for hikers until mid to late July, and high water at stream crossings is a problem in May and early June. The road to Cedar Grove is typically open from May to early or mid November. For 2026 it closes for the winter on November 13.

So the earlier in the season you start, the more likely you meet a crossing or a pass you can't get over. Check the park's current conditions page before you book and again before you drive. We keep the warnings for this route on the Rae Lakes Loop itinerary.

If you don't get a Rae Lakes Loop permit

If your date is gone at 7:00 AM, there are still four ways onto the loop.

• Swap the entry point. Woods Creek and Bubbs Creek have separate quotas, so the other direction is often still open on the same date.
• Move the start date. Each date has its own quota, and a start a day or two either side can be open when yours is gone.
• Walk up. Be at Roads End at 1:00 PM the day before, and get on the no-show list if the walk-up places are gone.
• Go after the quota season. From September 26, 2027 the permit is free and self-issued at the Roads End kiosk, with no daily limit. The trade is colder nights and a road that closes for the winter in November.

Or go with a guide. If the dates you can take off are the dates that are gone, ask us for the loop guided. Tell us your dates and we'll send you the guided price within 48 hours. It's free to ask, and nothing is charged until you say yes.

Be clear on what that changes. Every overnight group in the park needs a wilderness permit, guided or not, and only companies holding a park Commercial Use Authorization may guide here. What your guide takes off your plate is the work: the permit, the bear canisters, the food, the drive and the route, with someone who knows where the camps are and when the crossings go. Request a guide for the Rae Lakes Loop.