I'm convinced the only reason there's not MORE scripts around to do it is because their API/web framework is impossibly ugly and not intuitive.
Anyone botting the site should feel ashamed.
I just wish there was a "calmer" way. The experience of exploring our national parks should be an escape from our hectic every day lives. That begins with getting a place to sleep.
What I was pointing out is that a lottery does not on its own help with bots. Bots are good at making reservations very quickly at a specific time of day (in reservation systems that are first-come-first-serve), but bots can also easily be scaled up in number to sign up for an arbitrarily large number of slots in a lottery.
> The experience of exploring our national parks should be an escape from our hectic every day lives.
I totally agree, and it bums me out too. I have visited Yosemite several times per year for the last 6 or so years, and it's only gotten more and more popular. I rarely visit the valley any more, because it's such a madhouse. Even in the last few years I've seen demand go through the roof even for relatively difficult wildnerness backpacking trails. But the fact of the matter remains: way more people want to go than there is capacity for, and I'm sure they all want an easier calmer way to get reservations.
Imagine if campsites were either: a) first-come first-served b) reservation by physical mail only
I guarantee you'd see different levels of "demand" than we do now.
Interestingly I noticed that Yosemite backcountry permits still require mail or fax, but they email you the result. I think this is intentional, putting a small hoop to make sure they get "serious" inquiries only.
I say all of this out of defeat. On principle I would want to remove any and all barriers to visiting our national parks. But in practice what we have is not really working for anyone (at Yosemite and the other mega parks)
> But in practice what we have is not really working for anyone (at Yosemite and the other mega parks)
I'm not sure that's true. Tons and tons of people go there. It's not like it's so crowded that no one goes there any more (like the classic joke).
I use recreation.gov and the WA state equivalent regularly and am able to get decent reservations pretty easily. During the really high use times in WA we just go to camp sites (Forest Service sites are particularly good for this out here) and see if they have walk up spots available -- all campsites we have visited keep at least some spots available for this. Granted, we have only done this maybe four of five times so far, but we have got a spot every time.