# Rec.gov bot...



## MNichols

Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time. 

Looked at Deso, and yes, they have river permits listed as well as campsites. Didn't look much past that, but it would seem for a small fee, you can get notified via SMS of available permits. Might give us that don't seem to have any luck, an edge in getting on the permitted rivers.. 



https://campnab.com/



FWIW.


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## jsheglund

ah boo!

There is an April 27 Deso at this moment. Somebody beat the bots to it!


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## westwatercuban

All so you can have 24 hours to pull a trip together lol


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## MNichols

24 hours is better than no trip.. Some of the very best trips I've been on were 2 and 3 boat trips.. 

Guess it's a small consolation, but it does give one hope..


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## jsheglund

at least it aint free... 

*GOOD*
$90/year

Scans every 15 minutes
Up to 3 concurrent scans
Scan any date in the next 12 months
*BETTER*
$180/year

Scans every 10 minutes
Up to 5 concurrent scans
Scan any date in the next 12 months
*AWESOME*
$270/year

Scans every 5 minutes
Up to 7 concurrent scans
Scan any date in the next 12 months
*MEGA*
$450/year

Scans every 5 minutes
Up to 15 concurrent scans
Scan any date in the next 12 months


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## westwatercuban

Someone needs to find this cuck so we can give them a lesson.


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## Pinchecharlie

Yeah man that's just another step towards the rich having what ever they can pay for. Why not auction them...why not all at once...I'd say I wasn't surprised but I kinda am. I think it's a bit unfair. Hopefully most of the users just want a camp site at a drive in site but it would seem the end is near. Lol. I dunno about you guys but iam trying to convince myself to just get really good and say fuck it and run the hardest shit at the hardest time. No body out then!! Iam available to help bash up the haole if you guys find him. Has it coming making money like that...


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## graycloud

One person said they would give 500$ for a MFS permit now there wish may come true.Does not seem fare .


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## MNichols

Pinchecharlie said:


> Iam available to help bash up the haole if you guys find him


Begs the question, what's an haole Charlie. Any why would you want to bash it / him up?


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## MNichols

graycloud said:


> One person said they would give 500$ for a MFS permit now there wish may come true.Does not seem fare .


At the end of the day, rec.gov sucks in my estimation, I can't really blame someone for wanting to make some money and help people looking for sites. Free enterprise and all. But it does beg the question, how many others, if one can code this, are coding things we don't know about to further game the system?


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## westwatercuban

MNichols said:


> At the end of the day, rec.gov sucks in my estimation, I can't really blame someone for wanting to make some money and help people looking for sites. Free enterprise and all. But it does beg the question, how many others, if one can code this, are coding things we don't know about to further game the system?


Oh I’m sure I could hire a high schooler to write me that script. It’s not too complicated. All the script is doing is looking for a set of data and comparing that to another set. If there’s a match then it sends out an alert. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a decent populous who doesn’t this on their own. Now I don’t believe this is the majority. Nor even close to it. But it does throw a wrench in the gears. I’d argue that it could probably be more benifical to have something to speed click for you. To snag that permit quicker than a human can. That way you literally have the fastest hands in the west.


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## griz

MNichols said:


> Begs the question, what's an haole Charlie. Any why would you want to bash it / him up?


charlie can’t surf.
or type. 
switch the a and h and you’ve got your answer.


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## MNichols

griz said:


> charlie can’t surf.
> or type.
> switch the a and h and you’ve got your answer.


I couldn't resist poking him..


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## Pinchecharlie

It literally translates without soul. And a bash up is just a bit more threatening way of explaining to a community member that their doing a wrong by their neighbors. Of course it could be violent but I do not Condon violence. . Iam just a bit tired of the new school attitude that everything is for sale and it's not their fault if you can not afford it. Which of course is my failure in reality but non the less would and will cause some ever so rarely to bash a haole in the car park . And what's to keep a guy from collecting the permit (as far as computer programming) and then notifying clie ts it's for sale ? It honestly could be auctioned qt that point right? Is there enough of a market for this site to work?


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## Pinchecharlie

Oh man...


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## John_in_Loveland

I was skimming through this and it looks to me that they only scan campsites. I didn't see anywhere that they are scanning and notifying for permits. They even say they are having trouble with backcountry permits.


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## Andy H.

I gotta go wash the puke out of my mouth....

Are bots booking all of the good campsites in Lake Tahoe?

"...Two developers in British Columbia were running into the same issue when they realized a window of opportunity: cancellations.

“My wife was one morning just going through the booking reservation site trying to find anything,” says Eric Shelkie, one of the developers behind a website called Campnab. “She was hitting refresh on the page and suddenly something popped up and became available. We were both surprised that it was possible to do that. It got my developer brain spinning on that.”

This year, with so many people heading to Tahoe, with this much pent-up desperation from the pandemic, I was ready to try anything. Shelkie and his business partner, Eric Karjaluoto, figured out how to build a service that scrapes public data off camping reservation websites, to look for cancellations. Their website is called Campnab and their tagline says they help people like me find reservations at sold-out camp sites. How? As it happens, plans change frequently and many campsite reservations get canceled.

“I was surprised to see how often things were coming up,” Shelkie said. “It blew my mind, just how many cancellations were coming up.”

Campnab lets you set up a search for a campground and a set of dates. It charges a small fee: $10 a month, which includes three different searches. Then it will scan for cancellations, and if something becomes available, it’ll let you know with a text message. Karjaluoto and Shelkie draw a firm line here. They’ll only help you find a site when it opens up. It’s up to you to make haste, log on and book that campsite.

Some of Campnab’s most popular searches in North America include places like Yosemite National Park and San Elijo State Beach in San Diego. I filled out my search query for Bliss State Park and waited."


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## MNichols

John_in_Loveland said:


> I was skimming through this and it looks to me that they only scan campsites. I didn't see anywhere that they are scanning and notifying for permits. They even say they are having trouble with backcountry permits.


Like I said, they listed deso river permits..


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## Riverlife

Pinchecharlie said:


> ... I dunno about you guys but iam trying to convince myself to just get really good and say fuck it and run the hardest shit at the hardest time.


Yeah, once upon a time that kinda worked. Those days are long gone, I’m afraid. There are tons of people out paddling stuff that not so long ago was considered to be on the very cutting edge of the sport. Population growth is spoiling everything everywhere, but also the equipment and skill sets have skyrocketed in their potential. I think about all you can do is be damn thankful for those times that you do get out on a nice river. A little solitude and beauty are becoming more and more valuable by the day!


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## IDriverRunner

MNichols said:


> Like I said, they listed deso river permits..












uhhh... Middle Fork is listed too.


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## Nanko

God dammit. I can still click faster than what’s on offer but why wouldn’t someone make a bot that checks many times a second? This is absolute BS.


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## MNichols

IDriverRunner said:


> View attachment 75146
> 
> 
> uhhh... Middle Fork is listed too.


Yeah, I figured it crawls rec.gov like a search engine crawls sites and lists anything available as a choice...


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## okieboater

The world wide web has opened up so much data/resources to the general public
Unfortunate 
That when you digitize anything and put it on the WWW, it is open season for others to see and or change it


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## Dangerfield

Sounds like Captcha time again!


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## Nanko

Hey they have a chat feature! Let ‘em hear about it!


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## upacreek

So it scrapes publicly available data into some queryable database to sell you an opaque service with no guarantees of success. That just screams SCAM, and there's no proof this even works at all, outside Canada, or on river permits...but all that matters like most bad faith posts by Old Man River is that it riles people up.


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## Nanko

Just chatted with the lovely gentleman running this scam and I encourage you to do the same. He at least outwardly claims that he is doing a public service for grannies trying to camp with their families. “Shocked” by anyone taking issue with the business. Confirmed the fastest refresh they offer is 5 mins, so we got them there.


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## westwatercuban

Lol well if his goal is helping the old folks no wonder why MNichols is cool with it 😂


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## Norcalcoastie

I’ve already seen the article that Andy shared earlier. The more you share this, the worse you’ll make it for everyone. I’m hopeful this app and others like it will get shut down. It really seems to take away from what fairness is left.

I get it - there’s thousands of people looking for a few permits. Try more shoulder seasons, “unpermitted” rivers, and the like. It’s frustrating for sure - but this will only make it worse.


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## Nanko

upacreek said:


> So it scrapes publicly available data into some queryable database to sell you an opaque service with no guarantees of success. That just screams SCAM, and there's no proof this even works at all, outside Canada, or on river permits...but all that matters like most bad faith posts by Old Man River is that it riles people up.


Why wouldn’t it work? These things have a long track record of success with wreck.gov campsites, which work exactly the same. Sure it’s a scam, but I bet not to the paying user.


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## karj

Hi everyone,

A couple of folks from this thread reached out to me this morning. Nanko and I went back and forth a bit on chat. Another person also sent me a link asking if I’d pop over and explain what our service offers.

My name’s Eric and I’m one of the two people working on Campnab. (I’m the bald one.)

My hunch is that some of you aren’t interested in what I have to say. Fair enough. I just figured it’d be a good idea to drop by and give you a bit of a sense for who we are and what our service does.

If you choose to delete my reply, I’ll understand.

I get that some are apprehensive about what we do. That said, it’s nothing special and not anything dubious. The whole thing started when my friend (also named Eric) got a campervan and couldn’t find a single campsite availability. So, his wife literally hit Refresh for hours until something opened up. That seemed like a pretty poor use of time.

My friend built a little app that’d automate that process, so his wife could do something else with her day. He figured others would find this handy, too. So we opened it up to the public.

Our service doesn’t do anything to limit availabilities for others. We don’t book, hold, transfer, or resell spots—even though folks ask us to do this every day. All we do is let people know when a spot opens up. It’s up to them to try to book it. They don’t always get the spot they’re after. Spots are often rebooked by others before they even click through.

You can still do this on your own, just like you always could. In fact, you’ll do this faster than us. Our service checks every 5 – 60 minutes. You can certainly click a lot faster than that. However, if you can’t spend all day at your computer our service can save you that hassle.

I should also note that a number of booking systems now offer availability notifications like ours, right out of the box. You’ll find these in place on Reserve California, Florida State Parks, and most of the areas using Reserve America or Camis.

Our service focuses on campsite availabilities. We only started offering permit scanning last year, as a handful of folks reached out, asking us to do this.

Yes, we charge for our service. That‘s because we work on it a lot. Honestly, you all probably spend more time outdoors than we do, as we’re always working on this thing. I’m glad that this product helps people get out in nature, but Eric and I wouldn’t mind getting a bit more time outside for ourselves.

The cost to use our service isn’t that high for most folks. Our monthly plans start at $10. This includes 3 scans, so a few dollars a scan. Many folks use the service for a month, find the spots they’re after, and then cancel service. Those purchases help us cover payment processing, server costs, text messaging fees, and allows the two of us to earn a (modest) wage.

From my chat session with Nanko, I know that some of you think that what we’re doing is awful. I feel badly about that. We don’t get that sort of feedback from many people. Most folks seem to appreciate that we offer a convenience, which opens up their time for doing other things.

Even if you disagree with my viewpoint, I hope my note will help show you that we are real people who’re trying to do a good thing. We feel deep frustration when we visit “sold-out” campgrounds and find that a third of the campsites are sitting empty. We’re trying to help folks get access to these spaces and allow parks to be more fully utilized.

Anyway, I’m still behind on getting the morning coffee that I told Nanko I was late for. So, I’m going to brew that up and get to work. Thanks for allowing me to post this. 🙂

Eric


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## Dangerfield

I do it the old fashioned way (for river permits) and post for “free”. Bet you can’t beat that.


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## KlaustheK

That reply makes it harder to blindly hate him. This darn civil discourse is getting in the way of my anonymous internet rage.


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## Riverlife

I respect that you came here to write an honest perspective on your service. I also agree with the often touted value of getting more people to enjoy the great outdoors. That said, I think you are missing the overall impact of such systems. I think there’s a time and place for helping the masses to get out, tightly restricted access locations do not need any more than they are already getting!




karj said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> A couple of folks from this thread reached out to me this morning. Nanko and I went back and forth a bit on chat. Another person also sent me a link asking if I’d pop over and explain what our service offers.
> 
> My name’s Eric and I’m one of the two people working on Campnab. (I’m the bald one.)
> 
> My hunch is that some of you aren’t interested in what I have to say. Fair enough. I just figured it’d be a good idea to drop by and give you a bit of a sense for who we are and what our service does.
> 
> If you choose to delete my reply, I’ll understand.
> 
> I get that some are apprehensive about what we do. That said, it’s nothing special and not anything dubious. The whole thing started when my friend (also named Eric) got a campervan and couldn’t find a single campsite availability. So, his wife literally hit Refresh for hours until something opened up. That seemed like a pretty poor use of time.
> 
> My friend built a little app that’d automate that process, so his wife could do something else with her day. He figured others would find this handy, too. So we opened it up to the public.
> 
> Our service doesn’t do anything to limit availabilities for others. We don’t book, hold, transfer, or resell spots—even though folks ask us to do this every day. All we do is let people know when a spot opens up. It’s up to them to try to book it. They don’t always get the spot they’re after. Spots are often rebooked by others before they even click through.
> 
> You can still do this on your own, just like you always could. In fact, you’ll do this faster than us. Our service checks every 5 – 60 minutes. You can certainly click a lot faster than that. However, if you can’t spend all day at your computer our service can save you that hassle.
> 
> I should also note that a number of booking systems now offer availability notifications like ours, right out of the box. You’ll find these in place on Reserve California, Florida State Parks, and most of the areas using Reserve America or Camis.
> 
> Our service focuses on campsite availabilities. We only started offering permit scanning last year, as a handful of folks reached out, asking us to do this.
> 
> Yes, we charge for our service. That‘s because we work on it a lot. Honestly, you all probably spend more time outdoors than we do, as we’re always working on this thing. I’m glad that this product helps people get out in nature, but Eric and I wouldn’t mind getting a bit more time outside for ourselves.
> 
> The cost to use our service isn’t that high for most folks. Our monthly plans start at $10. This includes 3 scans, so a few dollars a scan. Many folks use the service for a month, find the spots they’re after, and then cancel service. Those purchases help us cover payment processing, server costs, text messaging fees, and allows the two of us to earn a (modest) wage.
> 
> From my chat session with Nanko, I know that some of you think that what we’re doing is awful. I feel badly about that. We don’t get that sort of feedback from many people. Most folks seem to appreciate that we offer a convenience, which opens up their time for doing other things.
> 
> Even if you disagree with my viewpoint, I hope my note will help show you that we are real people who’re trying to do a good thing. We feel deep frustration when we visit “sold-out” campgrounds and find that a third of the campsites are sitting empty. We’re trying to help folks get access to these spaces and allow parks to be more fully utilized.
> 
> Anyway, I’m still behind on getting the morning coffee that I told Nanko I was late for. So, I’m going to brew that up and get to work. Thanks for allowing me to post this. 🙂
> 
> Eric


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## MNichols

Thanks for posting and explaining it.


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## Nanko

karj said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> A couple of folks from this thread reached out to me this morning. Nanko and I went back and forth a bit on chat. Another person also sent me a link asking if I’d pop over and explain what our service offers.
> 
> My name’s Eric and I’m one of the two people working on Campnab. (I’m the bald one.)
> 
> My hunch is that some of you aren’t interested in what I have to say. Fair enough. I just figured it’d be a good idea to drop by and give you a bit of a sense for who we are and what our service does.
> 
> If you choose to delete my reply, I’ll understand.
> 
> I get that some are apprehensive about what we do. That said, it’s nothing special and not anything dubious. The whole thing started when my friend (also named Eric) got a campervan and couldn’t find a single campsite availability. So, his wife literally hit Refresh for hours until something opened up. That seemed like a pretty poor use of time.
> 
> My friend built a little app that’d automate that process, so his wife could do something else with her day. He figured others would find this handy, too. So we opened it up to the public.
> 
> Our service doesn’t do anything to limit availabilities for others. We don’t book, hold, transfer, or resell spots—even though folks ask us to do this every day. All we do is let people know when a spot opens up. It’s up to them to try to book it. They don’t always get the spot they’re after. Spots are often rebooked by others before they even click through.
> 
> You can still do this on your own, just like you always could. In fact, you’ll do this faster than us. Our service checks every 5 – 60 minutes. You can certainly click a lot faster than that. However, if you can’t spend all day at your computer our service can save you that hassle.
> 
> I should also note that a number of booking systems now offer availability notifications like ours, right out of the box. You’ll find these in place on Reserve California, Florida State Parks, and most of the areas using Reserve America or Camis.
> 
> Our service focuses on campsite availabilities. We only started offering permit scanning last year, as a handful of folks reached out, asking us to do this.
> 
> Yes, we charge for our service. That‘s because we work on it a lot. Honestly, you all probably spend more time outdoors than we do, as we’re always working on this thing. I’m glad that this product helps people get out in nature, but Eric and I wouldn’t mind getting a bit more time outside for ourselves.
> 
> The cost to use our service isn’t that high for most folks. Our monthly plans start at $10. This includes 3 scans, so a few dollars a scan. Many folks use the service for a month, find the spots they’re after, and then cancel service. Those purchases help us cover payment processing, server costs, text messaging fees, and allows the two of us to earn a (modest) wage.
> 
> From my chat session with Nanko, I know that some of you think that what we’re doing is awful. I feel badly about that. We don’t get that sort of feedback from many people. Most folks seem to appreciate that we offer a convenience, which opens up their time for doing other things.
> 
> Even if you disagree with my viewpoint, I hope my note will help show you that we are real people who’re trying to do a good thing. We feel deep frustration when we visit “sold-out” campgrounds and find that a third of the campsites are sitting empty. We’re trying to help folks get access to these spaces and allow parks to be more fully utilized.
> 
> Anyway, I’m still behind on getting the morning coffee that I told Nanko I was late for. So, I’m going to brew that up and get to work. Thanks for allowing me to post this. 🙂
> 
> Eric


Thanks for posting this. Although I vehemently disagree with your service, It’s nice to see some transparency. I only speak for myself not this community. My issue is with equity of access. When payment to a private party results in increased access to shared public lands, I take issue. Not sure what it’s like in Canada, but here we are all public landowners with equal rights to access. Skewing the odds with $ is very much in contrast to this philosophy. I suspect this is a more accepted practice among car campers but IMO it doesn’t make it right. Your possibly sincere claim that your goal is to get more people in the outdoors does not pass muster in our world. In the river community, we are talking about permits with insanely narrow odds. Your service merely provides a way for people to pay for an edge in a highly competitive environment. 

This will essentially become an arms race for the most useful bot. Probably already has in the camping community. But thank you for your thoughts.


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## foreigner

Rate limiting the /availability endpoints at rec.gov will shut down this (and any) bot service for good if anyone gets a line to their IT people.


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## westwatercuban

For only a few dollars a scan! You can see yourself in a sandy beach on the river! Call now for your first month free!


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## MNichols

foreigner said:


> Rate limiting the /availability endpoints at rec.gov will shut down this (and any) bot service for good if anyone gets a line to their IT people.


I would bet you any amount of money that they couldn't give a shit about it, people are clicking and paying, and that seems to be just about all they care about.. I think you'll find this with any private contractor that has a government contract.. if the government were to complain about it, that might be something that they would consider, or not


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## karj

foreigner said:


> Rate limiting the /availability endpoints at rec.gov will shut down this (and any) bot service for good if anyone gets a line to their IT people.


Actually, Recreation.gov encourages third-parties to use their data. You can read more about this here: Use and Share Our Data - Recreation.gov. I believe this in part ties to the Access Land initiative: Keep data about public land available and open to everybody.


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## foreigner

No @karj. Selling access is not part of that encouragement. There is a public API. You're not using it.


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## Dangerfield

There’s a difference with sharing data and exploiting it. I need to get a better dictionary to explain the term dubious.


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## Electric-Mayhem

There is no way that this service can be seen as above board in any way. The Government or Rec dot suck may not be trying to shut it down...but I guarantee that it does not have the thumbs up, if not for any other reason then the folks running this service are making a profit off of it without permission. This is basically the same thing as ticket scalping scrapers....and they are trying to shut that shit down any way they can.

I don't really agree with using these scrapers at all... but I definitely think its SUPER shady to provide a profit making service and these two supposed Eric guys are despicable humans for wanting to profit off of it.. The fact that they came in and tried to make it sound all legit and like they are doing people a favor by charging up to $500 for service that may not even get the customer what they want is just FUCKED....which is exactly where these guys should get. Don't even get me started on the "We are really surprised by the response...we haven't heard that before" bullshit.

This is a total and utter scam through and through... just a couple douchebags taking advantage of people. They aren't "getting more people into the outdoors"... those spots are going to be filled no matter what. You just want to take advantage of people and get their money....the definition of a scam.


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## Nanko

MNichols said:


> I would bet you any amount of money that they couldn't give a shit about it, people are clicking and paying, and that seems to be just about all they care about.. I think you'll find this with any private contractor that has a government contract.. if the government were to complain about it, that might be something that they would consider, or not


Yeah, it’s easy to pile on people like this Eric exploiting weaknesses in the American system for profit. Appropriately so, IMO. But let’s not forget that BAH is the true enemy of the people. They opened this door and not everyone is going to act ethically in response. Seems that this bot service is on pretty stable legal ground given that they do not book the permit themselves. Looks like they spent too much time thinking about whether they could, and neglected to consider whether or not they should.


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## foreigner

If @karj is sharing data per recreation.gov standards, he will be able to share a link to the public API.


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## foreigner

Nanko said:


> Yeah, it’s easy to pile on people like this Eric exploiting weaknesses in the American system for profit.


We shouldn't pile on people exploiting the American system for profit?!! LOL. Let me guess. You're a Republican.

Those poor exploiters. Give them a break!!


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## Dangerfield

If it’s for a Nobel cause other then lining their wallets, let them apply an algorithm that only accepts clients in a true need (medical, age, psychological, spiritual etc.). This company is not looking out for the “greater good “ plain & simple.
There’s a reason that @karj has a smile on his face.


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## Nanko

foreigner said:


> We shouldn't pile on people exploiting the American system for profit?!! LOL. Let me guess. You're a Republican.
> 
> Those poor exploiters. Give them a break!!


My next sentence was “Appropriately so IMO” (as in, appropriate to pile on). Just trying to point out there’s a bigger enemy and that’s BAH and the overall shift towards privatization. This guy is one grifter that deserves to be called out. All I was trying to say is there’s a wider issue. IMO.

Their business model is 1. Collect credit card information 2. Boost the payer’s odds of public land access at the expense of non-payers. It’s indefensible, and I’m not defending it.


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## MNichols

Nanko said:


> But let’s not forget that BAH is the true enemy of the people


BAH?


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## foreigner

Fair enough . BAH (Booz Allen Hamilton) is a terrible company but maybe less so in the case of their rec.gov contract and more so with their defense work robbing the American taxpayer.


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## MNichols

Copy, thanks.


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## karj

Electric-Mayhem said:


> There is no way that this service can be seen as above board in any way. The Government or Rec dot suck may not be trying to shut it down...but I guarantee that it does not have the thumbs up, if not for any other reason then the folks running this service are making a profit off of it without permission. This is basically the same thing as ticket scalping scrapers....and they are trying to shut that shit down any way they can.
> 
> I don't really agree with using these scrapers at all... but I definitely think its SUPER shady to provide a profit making service and these two supposed Eric guys are despicable humans for wanting to profit off of it.. The fact that they came in and tried to make it sound all legit and like they are doing people a favor by charging up to $500 for service that may not even get the customer what they want is just FUCKED....which is exactly where these guys should get. Don't even get me started on the "We are really surprised by the response...we haven't heard that before" bullshit.
> 
> This is a total and utter scam through and through... just a couple douchebags taking advantage of people. They aren't "getting more people into the outdoors"... those spots are going to be filled no matter what. You just want to take advantage of people and get their money....the definition of a scam.


Hi again—

I’m sorry that some of you are unhappy with us. At the same time, some of the notes here feel a bit hostile.

Of course, you’re free to say what you’d like. I’m just not sure that anything I post here will improve the discussion.

As such, I’m going to step back now. I still need to get that coffee, so I’m going to go do that. 🙂

Have a nice day everyone!

Eric


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## westwatercuban

Dangerfield said:


> If it’s for a Nobel cause other then lining their wallets, let them apply an algorithm that only accepts clients in a true need (medical, age, psychological, spiritual etc.). This company is not looking out for the “greater good “ plain & simple.
> There’s a reason that @karj has a smile on his face.


Spiritual 🤣 my soul needs a river trip or I might lose my sanity.


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## MNichols

karj said:


> Hi again—
> 
> I’m sorry that some of you are unhappy with us. At the same time, some of the notes here feel a bit hostile.
> 
> Of course, you’re free to say what you’d like. I’m not sure that anything I post here will improve the discussion.
> 
> As such, I’m going to step back now. I still need to get that coffee, so I’m going to go do that. 🙂
> 
> Have a nice day everyone!
> 
> Eric


You too Eric, I think one of the underlying things that you may not be aware of, is permits to run Rivers are getting scarcer and scarcer, harder and harder to get if you will, and it has bred a whole lot of frustration and hostility within the River community, most of it directly focused at wreck.gov. it's many people's contention, mine included, that anything that games the system, to the disadvantage of folks trying to get a permit to run the river, well, let's just say it's not highly thought of.


----------



## Dangerfield

westwatercuban said:


> Spiritual 🤣 my soul needs a river trip or I might lose my sanity.


You’ll have to pay dearly for it I assume.


----------



## MNichols

westwatercuban said:


> Spiritual 🤣 my soul needs a river trip or I might lose my sanity.


I wanna go 😫🥺


----------



## foreigner

foreigner said:


> If @karj is sharing data per recreation.gov standards, he will be able to share a link to the public API.



🦗🦗🦗


----------



## UseTheSpinMove

MNichols said:


> BAH?











Reinventing the Recreation.gov Customer Experience


Booz Allen helped reimagine Recreation.gov as a modern e-commerce platform, transforming the digital customer experience (CX) for both citizens and government.




www.boozallen.com





I appreciate Eric chiming in to be transparent. Even if your ruffles are feathered about this whole bot situation, I think it's worth acknowledging his thoughtful attempt to talk about it here.

Moving on from raging against Eric (as we should... I think), this really is more of a systemic issue than an Eric's Bot issue. We live in a capitalist society, eh? I mean, why are we picking on a guy who tried a bit of entrepreneurship... and, who, perhaps, is not as connected over the years to the history of the MFS permit system(s)... when BAH is making god-knows how much money off of all of us, and the federal government (which, by extension, means you and I through our taxes) pays them to!

I totally see a person's point about how a bot is NOT in the SPIRIT of fair chase (if I can make an analogy between critter-hunting and permit-hunting)... but, I hardly blame the bot-maker for giving it a try. Don't hate the bot; hate the system that lets bots bot. Or something like that. Eric's bot is not the first, and won't be the last. If you've missed that news over the past few years, you've just missed that news.

If every capitalistic entrepreneur in history checked all of the moral grey areas before launching their products, we would still be living in caves. It's not one entrepreneur's fault.

I for one kinda sometimes wish we were still living in caves. As long as I was close to the river and had a boat. I don't know how the shuttles would work...


----------



## Nanko

Booz Allen Hamilton, the contractors paid handsomely to run wreck.gov. 



MNichols said:


> BAH?


----------



## westwatercuban

Anyone know when that contract is up? I’m sure the government wouldn’t be opposed to a lower bid


----------



## Dangerfield

Comparison: if your local bank leaves it’s vault open during the day, are you allowed to waltz in and take what you want because they accept deposits & withdrawals? Possibly the folks could get a real job data mining/exploiting users on platforms such as facebooger. My opinion, just being me.


----------



## foreigner

UseTheSpinMove said:


> If every capitalistic entrepreneur in history checked all of the moral grey areas before launching their products, we would still be living in caves. It's not one entrepreneur's fault.


Honestly, who can blame this person for taking advantage of us. It's not their fault. It's the GOVERNMENTS fault.


Im going to go shoot myself in the face now.


----------



## foreigner

westwatercuban said:


> Anyone know when that contract is up? I’m sure the government wouldn’t be opposed to a lower bid


2028 I believe. It's not just the bid amount. You have to prove you can do it.


----------



## jbomb

karj said:


> Actually, Recreation.gov encourages third-parties to use their data. You can read more about this here: Use and Share Our Data - Recreation.gov. I believe this in part ties to the Access Land initiative: Keep data about public land available and open to everybody.


From your own link, it's pretty clear you're in violation of the Rec.gov TOS even if you're limiting yourself to the published API:


> No Other Rights. You have no right or license to, and shall not: (i) copy, distribute, rent, lease, lend, sublicense, transfer or make derivative works of the API, the API Documentation. the API Key (collectively, the “API Vendor Materials”) or use any of the foregoing on a service bureau basis; (ii) provide your API Key or access to the API to any third party; (iii) decompile, reverse engineer, or disassemble the API Vendor Materials or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the API Vendor Materials; (iv) use the API Vendor Materials to create or make available an application programming interface or other product or service similar to, or that would otherwise be a substitute for, the API; (v) modify, remove, or obscure any copyright, trademark, patent or other notices or legends that may appear on the API Vendor Materials or during the use and operation thereof; (vi) work around any technical limitations in the API Vendor Materials or access any aspect of the API Vendor Materials not intentionally made available by API Vendor; or (vii) engage in any activity with the API Vendor Materials that interferes with, disrupts, damages or accesses in an unauthorized manner the servers, networks or other properties or services of API Vendor or any third party.


----------



## Nanko

UseTheSpinMove said:


> Don't hate the bot; hate the system that lets bots bot.


Can’t I do both? Your points are well taken, though. We wish people were better, but they just aren’t.


----------



## MNichols

jbomb said:


> From your own link, it's pretty clear you're in violation of the Rec.gov TOS even if you're limiting yourself to the published API:


Now that right there is one gen u wine disclaimer.. I'm betting there were some of them there lawyer type people involved in that...


----------



## westwatercuban

foreigner said:


> 2028 I believe. It's not just the bid amount. You have to prove you can do it.


Challenge accepted. I don’t think it would be difficult to have a team put this together in 6 years. It will be sweeeeeeet. Trust me. Won’t be for profit either. Setup as a non profit. All proceeds go back to the reciprocating agency the camp/permit belongs to. And or youth outdoor programs. Set true regulations and restrictions. All will be good with the world.


----------



## Electric-Mayhem

karj said:


> Hi again—
> 
> I’m sorry that some of you are unhappy with us. At the same time, some of the notes here feel a bit hostile.
> 
> Of course, you’re free to say what you’d like. I’m just not sure that anything I post here will improve the discussion.
> 
> As such, I’m going to step back now. I still need to get that coffee, so I’m going to go do that. 🙂
> 
> Have a nice day everyone!
> 
> Eric


I'm glad you felt my hostility... It's what you deserve. Scammers deserve worse. 

You are right... Not much you can say to make your despicable behaviour sound like you are actually providing anything but a scam to the vulnerable or other shady people that want it easy but can't do it themselves. 

Get used to the hostility among the river crowd... And most people who do things the legitimate and legal way.


----------



## okieboater

As a retired computer programmer myself, I thought about creating a program to do much the same as karj did.

Just did not have the time free to do it. My choice. For sure even being retired I do not have time to manually click on rec dot gov time after time.

karj is using tools available to anyone.

karj and his bud took the time to research, code, test and provide the computer power to run his bot. (back in my day we called karj's tool a program guess the current folks call them bots.)

Not much in today's life is free. I remember when taxes were lower and many of the rivers I ran and camped by were not on a fee basis. That is almost all gone.

A person who is upset with karj is in my opinion ok to feel that way. I think the real problem is the people who manage these resources. They decided to outsource permits and reservations to a big national outfit (I do not know for sure but would bet BAH contributed the max to the elected officials who controlled the process. 

I suggest expressing your thoughts on the Buzz might make a person feel better but the time spent here would be better spent writing to the President and Cabinet Members who manage the bureaucrats who run the show.

I remember when Salt permit process was run by Ranger Don. Never had a problems and as a normal boater who applied I got multiple permits over time. When wreck dot com took over my luck stopped and I do not even apply any more. But those times were the good old days that I guess only guys like me and MNichols remember,


----------



## Dangerfield

Electric-Mayhem said:


> I'm glad you felt my hostility... It's what you deserve. Scammers deserve worse.
> 
> You are right... Not much you can say to make your despicable behaviour sound like you are actually providing anything but a scam to the vulnerable or other shady people that want it easy but can't do it themselves.
> 
> Get used to the hostility among the river crowd... And most people who do things the legitimate and legal way.


Well said "brother". I might have replied honestly/completely and got kicked off this site for good.


----------



## Wadeinthewater

karj said:


> I should also note that a number of booking systems now offer availability notifications like ours, right out of the box. You’ll find these in place on Reserve California, Florida State Parks, and most of the areas using Reserve America or Camis.


I seems that the contracting federal agencies could require Rec.gov to also set up a notification system for all to use. BAH might even voluntarily do it if they could fill those cancelled campsite reservations and make more money.

Let's start with notifications to unsuccessful applicants for the river and date that is being cancelled.


----------



## Conundrum

Karj isn't helping anyone enjoy the outdoors. There's so much free public BLM and FS land to go camp on that you don't need a reservation for, he could have spent his time creating free maps for people incapable of simple google searches. But, they bought a camper van and need an organized and in some cases, commercialized site to camp. I say great, help those type of folks enjoy the "outdoors".

I don't have a problem with what he's doing. I do think his "altruism" for helping those enjoy the "outdoors", is a little misguided. Or a BS narrative but to each their own.


----------



## Shaft

If Canada had their own version of rec.gov that allowed bots to be a thing, how many 'Mericans would create the same kind of service? I don't approve of what these Canucks are doing because it makes my own bot less effective. 

The answer is to change the model for cancellations, I would like to see them only go to people that applied to the lottery in the first place. Releasing cancellations randomly or a whole bunch on a certain day/time is what led to this mess.


----------



## upacreek

Thanks again to MNichols for completely poisoning the well of public discourse by barking about another hot-button topics with little (if any) actual evidence, stoking outrage, then dialing it back to play more of the moderate to tamp down the fire he started. While I definitely don't agree with this service nor buy that brand of BS altruism especially from tech profiteers, I find this kind of behavior also incredibly dishonest. Things _will _change with Rec.gov and I have faith in that since they're already starting to regarding river permit cancellations penalties/etc; but none of this is because of people with nothing better or more constructive to do that pretending to be a Town Crier about Gov mismanagement/appropriation/bureaucracy.


----------



## Nanko

upacreek said:


> Thanks again to MNichols for completely poisoning the well of public discourse by barking about another hot-button topics with little (if any) actual evidence, stoking outrage, then dialing it back to play more of the moderate to tamp down the fire he started. While I definitely don't agree with this service nor buy that brand of BS altruism especially from tech profiteers, I find this kind of behavior also incredibly dishonest. Things _will _change with Rec.gov and I have faith in that since they're already starting to regarding river permit cancellations penalties/etc; but none of this is because of people with nothing better or more constructive to do that pretending to be a Town Crier about Gov mismanagement/appropriation/bureaucracy.


I’m confused - what’s the beef here with MNichols? Bot use is an issue that affects our river community and wider equitable use of our public lands. He shared a source highly relevant to the topic, fueling some righteous moral outrage. This is “poisoning the well of discourse”? Yeah I can see that my response and that of others was cathartic but not practically helpful. But I know more than I did before, and am more inclined to make tangible steps to get my voice heard by the right people.

Speaking of no evidence, things WILL change with rec.gov? Based on...faith? OK Deso instituted a no-show ban at the direction of the river managers. What does that have to do with BAH’s nonexistent efforts to combat 3rd parties manipulating public access odds for profit?


----------



## westwatercuban

Nanko said:


> I’m confused - what’s the beef here with MNichols? Bot use is an issue that affects our river community and wider equitable use of our public lands. He shared a source highly relevant to the topic, fueling some righteous moral outrage. This is “poisoning the well of discourse”? Yeah I can see that my response and that of others was cathartic but not practically helpful. But I know more than I did before, and am more inclined to make tangible steps to get my voice heard by the right people.
> 
> Speaking of no evidence, things WILL change with rec.gov? Based on...faith? OK Deso instituted a no-show ban at the direction of the river managers. What does that have to do with BAH’s nonexistent efforts to combat 3rd parties manipulating public access odds for profit?


Upacreek still has their knickers in a twist about a few things they don’t get along with. So every so often they attack him for stupid shit.


----------



## FatmanZ

@MNichols stated: "it's many people's contention, mine included, *that anything that games the system,* to the disadvantage of folks trying to get a permit to run the river, well, let's just say it's not highly thought of."

There are several instances I've heard of where people try to game the system today, making it harder for 1 individual to win the lottery and/or pickup a cancellation. None of the following examples are blatant examples of commercial profiteering, but they are examples where one or more individuals attempt to gain an advantage. 

*Where is the line between acceptable vs. not acceptable? Who determines what that line is? *

Example A; someone gathers a huge group of friends/family/acquaintances annual to apply for the lottery. Statistically speaking, that action gives that 1 person at the center of it a sizeable advantage and higher odds of going on a permitted trip. 

Example B: Someone who owns their a company or practice and has their staff of paid employees checking wreck.gov constantly throughout the day for cancellations? Definite advantage. 

Example C: Someone who utilizes multiple devices and people (family, friends, neighbors, etc) to jump on wreck.gov the first day post season permits become available? Perhaps their connection/device is too slow, but their neighbor, my co-worker, etc have a faster device, giving me an advantage to snag a permit I otherwise would not get myself? 

I'm sure there are many other examples of "gaming the system" for one's benefit. 

*Where is the line of crossed? *


----------



## Nanko

FatmanZ said:


> @MNichols stated: "it's many people's contention, mine included, *that anything that games the system,* to the disadvantage of folks trying to get a permit to run the river, well, let's just say it's not highly thought of."
> 
> There are several instances I've heard of where people try to game the system today, making it harder for 1 individual to win the lottery and/or pickup a cancellation. None of the following examples are blatant examples of commercial profiteering, but they are examples where one or more individuals attempt to gain an advantage.
> 
> *Where is the line between acceptable vs. not acceptable? Who determines what that line is? *
> 
> Example A; someone gathers a huge group of friends/family/acquaintances annual to apply for the lottery. Statistically speaking, that action gives that 1 person at the center of it a sizeable advantage and higher odds of going on a permitted trip.
> 
> Example B: Someone who owns their a company or practice and has their staff of paid employees checking wreck.gov constantly throughout the day for cancellations? Definite advantage.
> 
> Example C: Someone who utilizes multiple devices and people (family, friends, neighbors, etc) to jump on wreck.gov the first day post season permits become available? Perhaps their connection/device is too slow, but their neighbor, my co-worker, etc have a faster device, giving me an advantage to snag a permit I otherwise would not get myself?
> 
> I'm sure there are many other examples of "gaming the system" for one's benefit.
> 
> *Where is the line of crossed? *


I hear your point, but to me it’s clear. When money changes hands for the purpose of increasing an individual’s odds. And/ or when agency regulations or applicable law is breached.


----------



## ColoRobo

karj said:


> Hi again—
> 
> I’m sorry that some of you are unhappy with us. At the same time, some of the notes here feel a bit hostile.
> 
> Of course, you’re free to say what you’d like. I’m just not sure that anything I post here will improve the discussion.
> 
> As such, I’m going to step back now. I still need to get that coffee, so I’m going to go do that. 🙂
> 
> Have a nice day everyone!
> 
> Eric


Damn dude, did you ever brew a pot?


----------



## TboneCooper

Nanko makes some great points in regards to access and cost with our shared resources (in this case river permits). I'm an avid leftist and could write a paper on the issues I have with how permits are allocated but I'll spare everyone. I understand being frustrated that someone made a bot to check cancellations and charges for it, but we're living in capitalism. The Erics aren't doing anything illegal, and with some internet searching and a deep dive in stackoverflow I bet most people on here could make their own bot. Basically everything these days that has limited releases and allocations on the internet has bots. Being pissed off at Eric doesn't really do anything. If it wasn't them it would be someone else.


----------



## Dangerfield

TboneCooper said:


> Nanko makes some great points in regards to access and cost with our shared resources (in this case river permits). I'm an avid leftist and could write a paper on the issues I have with how permits are allocated but I'll spare everyone. I understand being frustrated that someone made a bot to check cancellations and charges for it, but we're living in capitalism. The Erics aren't doing anything illegal, and with some internet searching and a deep dive in stackoverflow I bet most people on here could make their own bot. Basically everything these days that has limited releases and allocations on the internet has bots. Being pissed off at Eric doesn't really do anything. If it wasn't them it would be someone else.


Personally I have never met a bot that I didn’t despise. A me, myself & I go fund me program doesn’t fit into my box of values.


----------



## Nanko

TboneCooper said:


> I'm an avid leftist and could write a paper on the issues I have with how permits are allocated but I'll spare everyone.


Nah, don’t spare us. I’d read the hell out of that paper.


----------



## foreigner

TboneCooper said:


> Nanko makes some great points in regards to access and cost with our shared resources (in this case river permits). I'm an avid leftist and could write a paper on the issues I have with how permits are allocated but I'll spare everyone. I understand being frustrated that someone made a bot to check cancellations and charges for it, but we're living in capitalism. The Erics aren't doing anything illegal, and with some internet searching and a deep dive in stackoverflow I bet most people on here could make their own bot. Basically everything these days that has limited releases and allocations on the internet has bots. Being pissed off at Eric doesn't really do anything. If it wasn't them it would be someone else.


It's against the rec.gov terms of services as was plainly stated above. Illegal, yes. Prosecutable, if anyone gives a shit to do so.

It's one thing to create a bot that exploits a non-public API for private use or post it on the internet for people to use. It's different to profit off it. We're not talking about a lot of money so I doubt anything will come from it but you have to be pretty stupid to sell data that you are taking w/o permission from a federal government site.

As a business, you're pissing in the wind, because as soon as the powers that be catch wind of what you are doing they either a) shut down the exploit, ending your business or b) take legal action. Again, dumb thing to do. Not well-thought-out.


----------



## Nanko

foreigner said:


> It's against the rec.gov terms of services as was plainly stated above. Illegal, yes. Prosecutable, if anyone gives a shit to do so.
> 
> It's one thing to create a bot that exploits a non-public API for private use or post it on the internet for people to use. It's different to profit off it. We're not talking about a lot of money so I doubt anything will come from it but you have to be pretty stupid to sell data that you are taking w/o permission from a federal government site.
> 
> As a business, you're pissing in the wind, because as soon as the powers that be catch wind of what you are doing they either a) shut down the exploit, ending your business or b) take legal action. Again, dumb thing to do. Not well-thought-out.


Thanks for this insight. If only the last paragraph were true in this case. Wreck don’t care long as that $6 keeps coming.


----------



## Pinchecharlie

Ohhhhhhhhhhh..







.


----------



## ArgoCat

Pretty sure this same situation came up a few years back on the MFS Permit, and they switched from random releases to an 8am release all current cancelations. So basically, you just have to check in once a day, which isn't great but helps to level the field a bit. Easy way to stop the bots is to have a captcha to enter the site to check dates. This is used by several sites but only to reserve a spot or access your account and not just look at dates. 

Of course, any regular here knows that the powers that be do check in on this site, which is why we are seeing changes in the management of RT, ABC, and Deso happening this year. So I am sure that this thread is being read by several resource managers as we speak. So who knows, maybe one of them will mention this in a meeting and it might just work its way up the chain. Most of the career employees that run many of these resources absolutely believe in fair and impartial access.


----------



## ArgoCat

P.S. Just a simple release of all cancelations at 8am would probably put a stop to this as the success rate for subscribers would be drastically reduced, and therefore, demand would plummet along with price and profit. Hint, hint, Wink, Wink. But yeah, that will probably never happen. or Perhaps.........


----------



## Dangerfield

Thank you @Nanko and whoever else reached out to the bot boy’s and roped them into the conversation. I bet they thought they would get some advertising and more clients out of the deal. I wonder, how many of us have connections up the food chain that could correct the problem and have already started working on it?


----------



## Shaft

ArgoCat said:


> Pretty sure this same situation came up a few years back on the MFS Permit, and they switched from random releases to an 8am release all current cancelations. So basically, you just have to check in once a day, which isn't great but helps to level the field a bit. Easy way to stop the bots is to have a captcha to enter the site to check dates. This is used by several sites but only to reserve a spot or access your account and not just look at dates.
> 
> Of course, any regular here knows that the powers that be do check in on this site, which is why we are seeing changes in the management of RT, ABC, and Deso happening this year. So I am sure that this thread is being read by several resource managers as we speak. So who knows, maybe one of them will mention this in a meeting and it might just work its way up the chain. Most of the career employees that run many of these resources absolutely believe in fair and impartial access.


My opinion is that captcha's aren't the answer to stop bots, nor is requiring a user login or HTTP header/cookie shenanigans, or rate limiting. You stop bots by getting rid of the clicks, anytime you rely on users to click on something it invites abuse. Abusing that process might not be 100% automated, say you have to manually enter the captcha/login/2FA then Selenium takes over the browser.

Cancellations released at 8AM is a great idea to stop campnab but I am pretty sure there are bots out there that grab the 8AM cancellations too, they just aren't being advertised

My suggestion is for rec.gov to stop the random cancellation releases and the AM releases, then hold a lottery for every single permit that gets thrown back. Why shouldn't we get more value out of our $6-16 lottery reservation fee? I'm not hopeful that any of this will happen but a guy can dream...


----------



## Dangerfield

Good morning,
The path forward became clear as I was fufilling my fiscal responsibility to the U.S. Government yesterday afternoon in between looking for a cancellation for a campsite at my river permit launch location. If I dont find it the honest way, I'll just leave earlier to get a non reservable site. Very ironic at tax time to realize once again Americans are getting fleeced without realizing it. The challenge flag has been thrown so I wont get mad, I'll get even.

Oh, I forgot to extend a warm BUZZ welcome to the folks at campnab.


----------



## Dangerfield

Furthermore, if it's happening for campsites what's to prevent less advertized bot's (small tech savy boating groups) from doing the same shit for river permits?


----------



## westwatercuban

That


Dangerfield said:


> Good morning,
> The path forward became clear as I was fufilling my fiscal responsibility to the U.S. Government yesterday afternoon in between looking for a cancellation for a campsite at my river permit launch location. If I dont find it the honest way, I'll just leave earlier to get a non reservable site. Very ironic at tax time to realize once again Americans are getting fleeced without realizing it. The challenge flag has been thrown so I wont get mad, I'll get even.
> 
> Oh, I forgot to extend a warm BUZZ welcome to the folks at campnab.
> 
> View attachment 75191


they are the real crooks. Fuckin assholes taking our money and we get nothing out of it. But the politicians are making a great return!


----------



## Nanko

Shaft said:


> My opinion is that captcha's aren't the answer to stop bots, nor is requiring a user login or HTTP header/cookie shenanigans, or rate limiting. You stop bots by getting rid of the clicks, anytime you rely on users to click on something it invites abuse. Abusing that process might not be 100% automated, say you have to manually enter the captcha/login/2FA then Selenium takes over the browser.
> 
> Cancellations released at 8AM is a great idea to stop campnab but I am pretty sure there are bots out there that grab the 8AM cancellations too, they just aren't being advertised
> 
> My suggestion is for rec.gov to stop the random cancellation releases and the AM releases, then hold a lottery for every single permit that gets thrown back. Why shouldn't we get more value out of our $6-16 lottery reservation fee? I'm not hopeful that any of this will happen but a guy can dream...


Yeah, this is the correct answer, or very close. Not so difficult. Grand Canyon figured it out long ago. What’s most annoying is these solutions fall under the “no shit” category. It’s baffling how awful adults can be at their jobs.

That said, I can find a niche in the current mess and get on most BAH-run lottery rivers every year. Yampa and Selway are the outliers. This would not be the case if the system was reasonable and fair; as it should and could easily be.


----------



## UseTheSpinMove

Shaft said:


> I am pretty sure there are bots out there that grab the 8AM cancellations too,


For what it's worth... and I'm kinda talking out of my you-know-what here because I'm not a super computer literate person... but I have talked with people who are... my impression is that there are lots of bots out there that tell you when a permit becomes available on Rec.gov but very few if any that have figured out how to actually pick them up. 

I may be wrong, of course. What I've been told, though, is that it is a whole other layer of complexity to actually get a bot to reserve the permit for you.

Not that this helps much, I suppose, with a lot of our frustrations. But I do think it's a small worthwhile thing to add into the conversation.


----------



## IDriverRunner

I don’t like lotteries. I never win. haha

One thing that has always been somewhat annoying is that when you see a cancellation, or unclaimed permits being rereleased, is that you have a fraction of second to click on the permit, and then figure out if you can make that launch date work.

It would be nice if cancelled permits were shown on rec.gov for a period of time, maybe 24 hours, but greyed out so you can’t reserve them Then, after 24 hours they were randomly released and made available to be reserved. That would give you about a day to figure out if that launch date even works for you. The same should go for the unclaimed permits that are rereleased….. for some of us this wouldn’t matter at all because any launch date takes priority over life/work/etc (this coming from a guy who just scheduled a somewhat major surgery after my 2 big river trips this year)


----------



## SpudCat

Shaft said:


> My suggestion is for rec.gov to stop the random cancellation releases and the AM releases, then hold a lottery for every single permit that gets thrown back. Why shouldn't we get more value out of our $6-16 lottery reservation fee? I'm not hopeful that any of this will happen but a guy can dream...


*Dude, this is 1000% the way it should work.* Every single person who put in for a lotto and didn't draw is obviously interested in floating said river. Cancellations should be a second draw for all these folks. This system favors random chances vs. lame bots and people who have the time to check and check and check...


----------



## foreigner

The most fair thing to do would be to have a system that benefits my schedule and habits and results in more permits for me. Oh, and someone should build it perfectly the first time and I don't want any of my tax dollars used on it. I reserve the right to bitch regardless.

Seriously, though. Grand canyon is definitely the best system and is arguably the most fair because it includes the 5 year point discount. These systems are expensive to build though and the current river permitting through rec.gov works pretty damn well. Considering the population served and the amount of money this community is willing to put into it (nothing) it seems like the current system does the job and incremental improvements are the way to go.

Also, I don't like spending $25 every year to be rejected from the Grand. Rec.gov is more reasonable.


----------



## Electric-Mayhem

I liked the old call in system at Westwater too. You just called in and talked to person and asked for a date.

I still think the most equitable way to do it would be to automatically run a lottery with only the people who applied in the original lottery for that date being entered. Randomly draw one of them, offer it to them, and then if they don't want it, then another random drawing till you find someone who wants it. Super easy, no way to game the system, less likely to get canceled again, and its a bit more gratifying for the people who didn't win a permit since they know they might have another chance.


----------



## Nanko

Electric-Mayhem said:


> I liked the old call in system at Westwater too. You just called in and talked to person and asked for a date.
> 
> I still think the most equitable way to do it would be to automatically run a lottery with only the people who applied in the original lottery for that date being entered. Randomly draw one of them, offer it to them, and then if they don't want it, then another random drawing till you find someone who wants it. Super easy, no way to game the system, less likely to get canceled again, and its a bit more gratifying for the people who didn't win a permit since they know they might have another chance.


100% correct. I’d never see the popular runs during lotto season again (vs getting 4-5/ season now), but you are right.


----------



## Dangerfield

Does anyone have a crystal ball to determine how and when lottery/cancellation changes might be formally discussed and work their way thru the bureaucracy and become practice?

For those tech savy folks (me not included) the, the 5 minute data search lower limit is really a "tell" and how even that can be defeated. I will take the approach of picking off the low hanging fruit & nuts for quicker gratification.


----------



## Dangerfield

IDriverRunner said:


> View attachment 75146
> 
> 
> uhhh... Middle Fork is listed too.


*THOSE **FUCKERS!** (MIS-GUIDED SOULS)
rivernab?*
So much for General Civility


----------



## westwatercuban

Electric-Mayhem said:


> I liked the old call in system at Westwater too. You just called in and talked to person and asked for a date.
> 
> I still think the most equitable way to do it would be to automatically run a lottery with only the people who applied in the original lottery for that date being entered. Randomly draw one of them, offer it to them, and then if they don't want it, then another random drawing till you find someone who wants it. Super easy, no way to game the system, less likely to get canceled again, and its a bit more gratifying for the people who didn't win a permit since they know they might have another chance.


The timing would be a bitch though.

Hey a spot opened up tomorrow! you have 24 hours to let me know if you want it. Otherwise it will be pass on to the next person.

well that doesn’t work because the date will pass..I do get it. But I don’t see how it would work well.


----------



## MNichols

Electric-Mayhem said:


> I liked the old call in system at Westwater too. You just called in and talked to person and asked for a date.


For many many years, Carol was her name. Super nice lady, and the interesting thing about her was she had no desire to go down the river. Yes, little old lady, but still. I know Alvin tried for years, I asked her a couple times, but the answer was always no. 

Moab held out for years against rec.gov, but finally the pressure from Washington got too much, and the Field Office had no choice.. 

Sad. SO many things have changed there over the years..


----------



## Electric-Mayhem

westwatercuban said:


> The timing would be a bitch though.
> 
> Hey a spot opened up tomorrow! you have 24 hours to let me know if you want it. Otherwise it will be pass on to the next person.
> 
> well that doesn’t work because the date will pass..I do get it. But I don’t see how it would work well.


If it cancels within a few days in the current system its a crap shoot too....for some rivers canceling that close to your date will get you banned from applying for a while too.

Perhaps having it be first come first serve if it cancels within a 1-2 weeks of the launch date or something. Any further out then that and it would be assumed that if you applied for that date, you'd still be interested in going on that date. If not... let it pass to the next person. At the very least do that for the "unreserved or declined" dates from the primary lottery.


----------



## TheAlaskan

karj said:


> Hi again—
> 
> I’m sorry that some of you are unhappy with us. At the same time, some of the notes here feel a bit hostile.
> 
> Of course, you’re free to say what you’d like. I’m just not sure that anything I post here will improve the discussion.
> 
> As such, I’m going to step back now. I still need to get that coffee, so I’m going to go do that. 🙂
> 
> Have a nice day everyone!
> 
> Eric


Are you sorry enough to pull river permits off your service? If you're the well intentioned outdoorsman you make yourself out to be, you'd fix your service now that you know it's had a negative impact.


----------



## Noswetnam

I truly miss the days of waking up calling the ranger at 7:59 am and picking up a permit. This whole new system sucks. Haven’t got a permit in years and can’t stand all the new bot using, ramp hogging, etiquette-less, I’m so cool, check out my new rig, what size cooler should I use asshats out there. Rafting was a sport for pioneer’s and figuring it out for yourself, paying attention to those before you. Try building your own boat and rowing it, and by build I don’t mean putting a nrs frame on some rubber. ( somebody else built that for you) I digress


----------



## Riverlife

Noswetnam said:


> I truly miss the days of waking up calling the ranger at 7:59 am and picking up a permit. This whole new system sucks. Haven’t got a permit in years and can’t stand all the new bot using, ramp hogging, etiquette-less, I’m so cool, check out my new rig, what size cooler should I use asshats out there. Rafting was a sport for pioneer’s and figuring it out for yourself, paying attention to those before you. Try building your own boat and rowing it, and by build I don’t mean putting a nrs frame on some rubber. ( somebody else built that for you) I digress


Goddammit! This place is going to hell in a handbasket with this generation, there’s no hope I tell ya.

(Said my father, and his father, and his father….)


----------



## MNichols

Noswetnam said:


> I truly miss the days of waking up calling the ranger at 7:59 am and picking up a permit. This whole new system sucks. Haven’t got a permit in years and can’t stand all the new bot using, ramp hogging, etiquette-less, I’m so cool, check out my new rig, what size cooler should I use asshats out there. Rafting was a sport for pioneer’s and figuring it out for yourself, paying attention to those before you. Try building your own boat and rowing it, and by build I don’t mean putting a nrs frame on some rubber. ( somebody else built that for you) I digress


Beautiful boat, Lavro?


----------



## westwatercuban

Riverlife said:


> Goddammit! This place is going to hell in a handbasket with this generation, there’s no hope I tell ya.
> 
> (Said my father, and his father, and his father….)


But are they wrong???…


----------



## MNichols

westwatercuban said:


> But are they wrong???…


Absolutely, according to me!

Bwahahaha 😘


----------



## Andy H.

westwatercuban said:


> That
> 
> they are the real crooks. Fuckin assholes taking our money and we get nothing out of it. But the politicians are making a great return!


Ummm, paved interstate highway system? The FAA to get out flights around the country without crashing into each other? There are bound to be a few other things....


----------



## Riverlife

westwatercuban said:


> But are they wrong???…


“They” (myself included!) were both 100% correct, while simultaneously being incredibly narrow in their perspectives. The point was simply that I feel the pain of the person I was responding to, but also to laugh a bit that it’s somewhat of a constant perspective of each generation. As the world turns many things are lost, but some things are also gained; but of course all that’s kind of irrelevant since it is what it is. I piss and moan just as much as any other of course!


----------



## Riverlife

Andy H. said:


> Ummm, paved interstate highway system? The FAA to get out flights around the country without crashing into each other? There are bound to be a few other things....


Im pretty thankful for our fire and police departments. Schools and libraries are pretty cool. I hate paying taxes too, but in all honesty I probably wouldn’t be here without the ACA so I can’t gripe too much.


----------



## Noswetnam

Riverlife said:


> Goddammit! This place is going to hell in a handbasket with this generation, there’s no hope I tell ya.
> 
> (Said my father, and his father, and his father….)





Riverlife said:


> Goddammit! This place is going to hell in a handbasket with this generation, there’s no hope I tell ya.
> 
> (Said my father, and his father, and his father….)


Damn it I sound old


----------



## Noswetnam

MNichols said:


> Beautiful boat, Lavro?


It was a clacka craft found it 6 ft deep😂


----------



## Noswetnam

Thanks MNichols! Still looking for a trailer maybe you’ve got one?


----------



## Pinchecharlie

Was it sunk on the rogue? I rowed over the top of one once sunk here but we were un sure what to do lol so we just kept going .


----------



## Vattmal

Work smarter, not harder.

Humans have been using technology to gain an edge over others since the dawn of time. We use technology to make our lives easier every day, so why is this any different?

The person using a system like this clearly wants to be on the river or campground just as much as anyone else, they just understand it’s a more competitive world these days. I guarantee if you still had to “call at 8am and talk to a ranger,” you would all just get a busy signal and then cry about that on the buzz all day.

Adapt or die.


----------



## Dangerfield

I suppose if we all were low life cockroaches the playing field would be level & fair.


----------



## jsheglund

I choose... DEATH! now what?


----------



## Noswetnam

Pinchecharlie said:


> Was it sunk on the rogue? I rowed over the top of one once sunk here but we were un sure what to do lol so we just kept going .


No further south but if you see another one let me know!


----------



## Noswetnam

Vattmal said:


> Work smarter, not harder.
> 
> Humans have been using technology to gain an edge over others since the dawn of time. We use technology to make our lives easier every day, so why is this any different?
> 
> The person using a system like this clearly wants to be on the river or campground just as much as anyone else, they just understand it’s a more competitive world these days. I guarantee if you still had to “call at 8am and talk to a ranger,” you would all just get a busy signal and then cry about that on the buzz all day.
> 
> Adapt or die.


I hope I back over your gear spread out on the boat ramp. Never said I wasn’t competitive


----------



## Vattmal

jsheglund said:


> I choose... DEATH! now what?


One less person to contend with!


----------



## Noswetnam

Vattmal said:


> Work smarter, not harder.
> 
> Humans have been using technology to gain an edge over others since the dawn of time. We use technology to make our lives easier every day, so why is this any different?
> 
> The person using a system like this clearly wants to be on the river or campground just as much as anyone else, they just understand it’s a more competitive world these days. I guarantee if you still had to “call at 8am and talk to a ranger,” you would all just get a busy signal and then cry about that on the buzz all day.
> 
> Adapt or die.


Never mind I will be gone by the time you’re done rigging all of your beach chairs 

adapt or die!


----------



## Noswetnam

On your new raft, with a frame someone else made, that has your go pro mount to record your sweet ruby horse thief run, and all of your other shiny new shit. You new boaters are missing the point


----------



## Conundrum

Old boaters are missing some things too. But hey, what about the middle boaters like me?


----------



## Electric-Mayhem

Noswetnam said:


> On your new raft, with a frame someone else made, that has your go pro mount to record your sweet ruby horse thief run, and all of your other shiny new shit. You new boaters are missing the point


Wait....you use someone else's Crackacrap drift boat you pulled out of the river and now you are acting all high and mighty about those who use a raft package they bought?


----------



## westwatercuban

Noswetnam said:


> On your new raft, with a frame someone else made, that has your go pro mount to record your sweet ruby horse thief run, and all of your other shiny new shit. You new boaters are missing the point


Wait people record ruby runs?


----------



## IATNR

Whatever happened to the one buzzard that was going to shoot himself in the face a few pages back? I want to know if his widow will sell his frame to me, hard to find these days


----------



## MNichols

Conundrum said:


> Old boaters are missing some things too.


Yep, my virginity, my common sense, good judgement, all missing.. Should you locate any of them...


----------



## Pinchecharlie

Its Funny I met some kid paddlers (25ish) not long ago and they said they hated mountain buzz cause it was just old guys crying about dumb shit . Lol! They are rippers too so I had to believe them lol. Maybe we should start a old guy version so the kids can play too and we old guys can be as cranky as we want lol.


----------



## MNichols

Pinchecharlie said:


> Its Funny I met some kid paddlers (25ish) not long ago and they said they hated mountain buzz cause it was just old guys crying about dumb shit . Lol! They are rippers too so I had to believe them lol. Maybe we should start a old guy version so the kids can play too and we old guys can be as cranky as we want lol.


You mean this isn't the old guy version ? 

What dumb shit? We talk about impotent things here.. You just hush up and get me my Geritol..


----------



## westwatercuban

Pinchecharlie said:


> Its Funny I met some kid paddlers (25ish) not long ago and they said they hated mountain buzz cause it was just old guys crying about dumb shit . Lol! They are rippers too so I had to believe them lol. Maybe we should start a old guy version so the kids can play too and we old guys can be as cranky as we want lol.


Not everyone here is old Charlie 😂


----------



## MNichols

westwatercuban said:


> Not everyone here is old Charlie 😂


Yes, but you're cranky, we like you, so we let you play


----------



## foreigner

IATNR said:


> Whatever happened to the one buzzard that was going to shoot himself in the face a few pages back? I want to know if his widow will sell his frame to me, hard to find these days


It's plastic and has a busted weld. Selling for 10k


----------



## Anatomica

MNichols said:


> Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time.
> 
> Looked at Deso, and yes, they have river permits listed as well as campsites. Didn't look much past that, but it would seem for a small fee, you can get notified via SMS of available permits. Might give us that don't seem to have any luck, an edge in getting on the permitted rivers..
> 
> 
> 
> https://campnab.com/
> 
> 
> 
> FWIW.


Shhhhhhh.


----------



## MT4Runner

Electric-Mayhem said:


> Wait....you use someone else's Crackacrap drift boat you pulled out of the river and now you are acting all high and mighty about those who use a raft package they bought?


Ultimate scavenger move: salvaged like a pirate, saved a boat from the landfill, made it cool. 
Nowhere near the same as swiping plastic on a new raft. 
Has more sweat equity into that Clacka than you or I have in our dented beer can aluminum boats! I'd give noswetam a pass.


----------



## FloatMaBoat

Pinchecharlie said:


> It literally translates without soul. And a bash up is just a bit more threatening way of explaining to a community member that their doing a wrong by their neighbors. Of course it could be violent but I do not Condon violence. . Iam just a bit tired of the new school attitude that everything is for sale and it's not their fault if you can not afford it. Which of course is my failure in reality but non the less would and will cause some ever so rarely to bash a haole in the car park . And what's to keep a guy from collecting the permit (as far as computer programming) and then notifying clie ts it's for sale ? It honestly could be auctioned qt that point right? Is there enough of a market for this site to work?


Sorry Charlie, but this is a common misconception. Ha'ole and Haole are entirely different words. Ha'ole means "without breath" or without a sole, but the common day word Haole (no okina) just means foreigner.

🎶the more you know🎶


----------



## IATNR

foreigner said:


> It's plastic and has a busted weld. Selling for 10k


I called 911 to see if the Sheriff would deliver it to my place, they said NO! I am writing the governor now. Thanks for the frame beta


----------



## Dangerfield

Any chance in getting the camp robbers (and river raiders) back into discussion? It might help get the "train back on it's tracks".


----------



## Electric-Mayhem

MT4Runner said:


> Ultimate scavenger move: salvaged like a pirate, saved a boat from the landfill, made it cool.
> Nowhere near the same as swiping plastic on a new raft.
> Has more sweat equity into that Clacka than you or I have in our dented beer can aluminum boats! I'd give noswetam a pass.


Fair enough... I don't envy him the amount of fiberglass splinters he's had either I suppose. I guess I was just a little bit put off by him giving people crap about what they take down the river.


----------



## Dangerfield

If any Buzzard needs a Boundary reserved campsite for June 24th site 009 is open. It's a nice big one. My fee is still $0.00


----------



## Wallrat

griz said:


> charlie can’t surf.
> or type.
> switch the a and h and you’ve got your answer.


A Haole? That’s Hawaiian slang word for a grin-go. Derogatory…very.


----------



## Noswetnam

Electric-Mayhem said:


> Fair enough... I don't envy him the amount of fiberglass splinters he's had either I suppose. I guess I was just a little bit put off by him giving people crap about what they take down the river.


Sorry to put you off my original point was missing the old ways of doing stuff. Like calling in to the river office for permits. Let’s not forget where boating came from. Kenton saved the emerald mile from being a bonfire or maybe just the dump. Mark Thatcher sewed Velcro to webbing and attached to old tire treads cause he was tired of soggy feet. Point being the sport has always been about soul, freedom and ingenuity. I was told to “adapt or die” from from someone who if I had to guess bought everything from a website. I’m no purest I have rafts kayaks ect. But the permit guzzling bot using newcomers are not in the spirit of being a “boater” I guarantee Georgie White wouldn’t like what she sees. No warm coors coming their way


----------



## Noswetnam

Electric-Mayhem said:


> Fair enough... I don't envy him the amount of fiberglass splinters he's had either I suppose. I guess I was just a little bit put off by him giving people crap about what they take down the river.


And yes my fiberglass swim was my worst swim ever!


----------



## MT4Runner

Electric-Mayhem said:


> I guess I was just a little bit put off by him giving people crap about what they take down the river.


I think it fit the tone of the thread. Otherwise, I'd agree.


----------



## Dangerfield

There's a May 17th Middle Fork permit available at about 6:49am Pac Time.

Screw campnab


----------



## Dangerfield

OK the May 17 permit will be back about 7:26am Pac Time.

Someone was fast, I didn't even see it show up again.


----------



## Dangerfield

There was a big delay its back! & gone.


----------



## LJPurvis

I will add my two cents...

Many years ago following the lottery you just called each day (or several times a day) to ask about cancellations. If there were any you could pick any of them or all of them. One year we hit Hells Canyon every weekend for a month.

Then it went to Recreation.gov and it changed. No more calling in; you had to monitor the website. Also, you could no longer grab multiples. You could only get another cancellation for a particular river only after your current permit dates were over. I thought this was pretty fair. A buddy wrote some code to monitor the website. I modified it a bit but we were able to use this code for several years. It did exactly what the current guy's code does; it notified me when it found a cancellation for the rivers and date range I was wanting. It did not grab it and hold it. I NEVER gave this code to anyone and I NEVER sold notifications; it was strictly for personal use and I only added a few of my friends to the notification list. Then one day somebody started advertising that they would sell notifications (same as the person this thread is discussing). The following year Recreation.gov changed their code and tried to make it more difficult to "scrape" the data.

Like anything, it didn't stay hidden for long. I have not written any more code to access the data but it is there if you know how to access certain content (I do and it isn't too difficult). I don't harbor any ill will toward anyone that makes a buck in our economy providing public access data in a timely manner. The two things I hate about it are it provides more access to the river for people that are able/willing to pay. But even more frustrating to me is it allows easier access to those that are not as serious. I was talking to one of the rangers at Hells Canyon and they discussed the fact that the number of no-shows has gone up since Recreation.gov took over. There is no harsh penalty for the "maybe" group. People are holding permits "just in case" then don't go with the only punishment that they cannot enter for a permit (that they were not serious about anyway) for three years. I would like to see a more harsh penalty extracted from those that decide to cancel with less than two weeks notice; some monetary loss.

That is what frustrates me the most; people using this to lock in permits then not going. Serious river folk are losing out on permits.


----------



## MMclimbhigh

Hey Eric from Camp(Permit) Stealer..... please stay away from river permits. Not cool. Yes, your campsite idea is viable... river permits? no way. C'mon man. Multi-day boating expeditions are a far different experience than "my friend can't find a place to park his sprinter van... (why? too many sprinter vans to begin with)". Leave the boating community to work out our own issues with river permitting.

Hayduke... paging George Hayduke. Do you have cyber monkeywrench capabilities??


----------



## Dangerfield

I don’t think their bank accounts can hear you.


----------



## Dangerfield

I have had enough of the folks that appear to agree with the concept of camprob, defend the owners and appear to want the issue tamped down as if it's going to screw everything up. I have come to the conclusion that there are many bots out there from river rats and most likely some on the BUZZ. Of course they want to dismiss the problem as it will effect their ability to game the system if camprob is shut down - so will they.

Light me up if you wish.........


----------



## MMclimbhigh

Dangerfield said:


> I have had enough of the folks that appear to agree with the concept of camprob, defend the owners and appear to want the issue tamped down as if it's going to screw everything up. I have come to the conclusion that there are many bots out there from river rats and most likely some on the BUZZ. Of course they want to dismiss the problem as it will effect their ability to game the system if camprob is shut down - so will they.
> 
> Light me up if you wish.........


Not sure where you are going with this one Danger? If it's a stab at my comment, that's okay, I'll take it. 

Regarding this ridiculous coding bot, I simply don't think one can profit off of an app/program/bot that hops in to grab coveted river permits. We all work hard at applying for permits, going through the cancellation process, and periodically checking back in for any available crumb on the floor. These Eric dudes came up with the idea to grab *CAMPSITES* at National Parks, etc. There is a night and day difference between an evening at the GCNP Mather's Campground with 377 available sites (6 pp each = 2,262 potential "campers") and a mere 6 launches per day for Deso, 3 launches at Dinosaur, 9 launches per weekend for Chama, etc.! 

Furthermore, as others have brought up in the past... I do not agree with this "he who has the money can get the river permit" approach. Just because they have $500 to toss around shouldn't give them a leg up on the permit process. Shit, I bought my first kayak, paddle, and skirt for that price 25 yrs ago. 

Although I do not have the answers, I do think things need to change with the process. Let's hope that someone can rule out these scams. Receiving an email when a river permit cancellation pops up is most certainly cheating. 22 years-in-a-row, no success for Yampa lottery... and now some rich kid can sit in his $175k Sprinter van and get an immediate notification that a rare permit has opened up. Not sure how anyone thinks that's okay? Not all the anger should be focused on the Erics as, I agree, there are probably more bots like theirs. However, they are the one who brought this to bear. So yes, they deserve the ridicule at this juncture.

Cheers


----------



## LJPurvis

I'm not sure how to address the situation. They could handle it like the GC; open it up as a second chance lottery. Or they could just take any cancellations and have the system re-pick for folks that had put in for that date in the original lottery. Or...Or...Or...
What I can say for certain, as soon as it is digitized someone will write a bot, code, etc. to access it. Again, I don't hate on those that do it. I hate on those that get these permits and NEVER show up.


----------



## foreigner

If you want equal access, you should hate on people selling access to your private lands. 

That includes campnab, but the elephant in the room is commercial outfitters.

There's another fairness issue that people on this site don't like to talk about for obvious reasons. 

How many times have you been down a river? Should you get a 12th trip on the middle fork?


----------



## Dangerfield

My comment above was a generalization of this whole thread from the start. When this issue of unfair advantage is dismissed in any degree, it's aggravating to say the least. Add this to the fact of other games that most people play the lottery system (other than the Grand Canyon) as it is invites overuse of the resource. What is more fair and equitable having huge organized groups of folk's applying for specific dates/rivers and when one is drawn the ensuing flotilla heads down river or limiting group to rather small sizes Is there a happy medium and how would it be achieved? The odds to get on the river appears to be skewed for maximum organized applicants and limits the abilities of smaller non organized river runners which count too.
I have noticed on this site over the years (my current join date doesn't show previous user name/join date) of the many complaints of "never" being drawn for specific desirable river permits and in the same post they admit to being on that specific river many may times (I believe it was 8 times down the Middle Fork). Cry me a river!

I must admit I have been on the other end of the spectrum and have always been lucky on the draw and gracious when invited in the past.

As I finish up I just see that @foreigner just touched on times down subject.


----------



## cupido76

foreigner said:


> If you want equal access, you should hate on people selling access to your private lands.
> 
> That includes campnab, but the elephant in the room is commercial outfitters.
> 
> There's another fairness issue that people on this site don't like to talk about for obvious reasons.
> 
> How many times have you been down a river? Should you get a 12th trip on the middle fork?


That is a great observation I had overlooked in this discussion.

Spots on the river are already going to people willing to pay more than others.

And discrete entities are profiting from that.


----------



## Dangerfield

May 18th Middle Fork permit available at about 7:12am Pac Time


----------



## Dangerfield

It's live at 7:19am PT

Gone @ 7:21

Back again at 7:24


----------



## Dangerfield

A fellow Buzzard was able to book it.


----------



## Dangerfield

A May 17th Middle Fork will be available after 4:48PM Pac Time. Could be up to 5 minutes after.


----------



## Rockgizmo

Interesting that when ever someone posts here on the buzz, the time and date they’ll be throwing back MF permit… it RANDOMLY pops up at that exact time.


----------



## Dangerfield

It's not a completed/booked permit. There's a difference.


----------



## Rockgizmo

What do you mean?


----------



## Dangerfield

It's a permit that someone cancelled that randomly popped up within 24 hours per the policy. I started the booking procedure and didn't complete it. I am too soft and lazy to want to go that early and besides I already have one for the lottery control period.


----------



## Conundrum

He's a cool human bot for buzz. Not sure if his wife can or cannot find a campsite for their Sprinter.


----------



## LZMJRAFT

Wish I could afford one of them there sprinters, instead have a lot of rafting gear.....


----------



## westwatercuban

LZMJRAFT said:


> Wish I could afford one of them there sprinters, instead have a lot of rafting gear.....


Sometimes I wish I had one instead of a mortgage..


----------



## LZMJRAFT

And a 20 YO shuttle vehicle......


----------



## MNichols

LZMJRAFT said:


> And a 20 YO shuttle vehicle......


Priorities my friend, priorities....


----------



## ArgoCat

Can someone please tell me why you spend 100K plus on a camper van without a bathroom, which means you still have to find a campground to stay at and pay for, and then create a bot so you can park a bathroomless camper van at said campground? What kind' lunacy is that? Am I missing something here? Or is it that we have such a delicate flower that they are afraid to empty their own shit.


----------



## Electric-Mayhem

haha... I never understood why anyone wanted to poop in their vehicle either. It is a STEADFAST rule that you never poop on the Tour Bus (musical touring). You will be derided and laughed at (not with) for the rest of the tour. 

I've been looking at a truck camper...and the toilet part is my least important priority when looking at them. I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to camp at a big desirable campsite just to use the toilet though... so many other negatives involved (like other people all around you). I'll... Poop in a Bucket... over having to fight over a camping spot.

That said...most of the Van Life rigs I've seen have a composting toilet setup and many have a shower setup that mounts to the outside.


----------



## duct tape

Sprinter vans. Composting toilets. We’ve gotten a long way from the OP. Still focusing my internet rage at campnabbers profiting off public lands (which is no different in my book from outfitters putting so many trips down what was 30 years ago “my” Browns Canyon or ski areas charging $250 for where I used to backcountry ski). Non-profit bot? Hmmm - hey LPurvis, can I buy you a cup of coffee?


----------



## Dangerfield

May 22nd Middle Fork will be available at 7:55PM Pacific Time or a bit after


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## Dangerfield

May 22nd is back and available at 9:12 pm Pac Time or a bit after.

Be your very own permit holder/trip leader.

It was back for about 1 minute before taken.

back now at 9:22pm PT


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## Dangerfield

Middle Fork permit will be back at 10:01:39 or there abouts Pac Time

I hope I am screwing up camprob


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## RabbitEars

campnab explanation read like a infomercial, very disingenuous. rec.gov could put these scraper bots out of business by adding a "Restock Notification" like a lot of ecommerce sites do. People could just enter their email to be notified when a permit or camp spot on a particular day is "in stock" again and anyone that signed up for the notification would get an email (turn on email alerts on your phone for an added advantage).


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## Dangerfield

May 30th Middle Fork is available. @8:44pm Pac Time


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## westwatercuban

Dangerfield said:


> May 30th Middle Fork is available. @8:44pm Pac Time


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## Dangerfield

There be a June 2nd Middle Fork permit up for grab's. Who know's if the road will be passable by then.


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## Dangerfield

Hey folk's there is a July 25 MF permit that will be available at 3:31PM Pacific Time or there abouts.

Double thread posting to reach more folks.

My finder's fee is the same $0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


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## Dangerfield

@3:51PM NOW


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## Dangerfield

MY GOD someone let it slide. will come live sometime after 4:22pm PT


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## BenSlaughter

Tough to throw together a MF trip on such short notice.
I mean, I've done it on less. But not this summer, I'm sad to report.


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## Dangerfield

Middle Fork July 23rd permit coming back about 2:06 - 2:11 PM Pacific Time


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## Pine

MNichols said:


> Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time.
> 
> Looked at Deso, and yes, they have river permits listed as well as campsites. Didn't look much past that, but it would seem for a small fee, you can get notified via SMS of available permits. Might give us that don't seem to have any luck, an edge in getting on the permitted rivers..
> 
> 
> 
> https://campnab.com/
> 
> 
> 
> FWIW.





MNichols said:


> Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time.
> 
> Looked at Deso, and yes, they have river permits listed as well as campsites. Didn't look much past that, but it would seem for a small fee, you can get notified via SMS of available permits. Might give us that don't seem to have any luck, an edge in getting on the permitted rivers..
> 
> 
> 
> https://campnab.com/
> 
> 
> 
> FWIW.


This isn’t the first one. The last one was blocked by Rec.gov. I would imagine that they’ll detect and block this bot too.


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## Dangerfield

Hey there Pine, a few months back I pointed the MF permit ranger at this issue with links. Have not checked back to get anymore feedback.


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## Dangerfield

Middle Fork September 26 permit coming live in about 17 minutes - about 7:26pm Pac Time


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## Dangerfield

It showed again and will be available after 8:21 PT


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## griz

It’s gone for anyone still clicking the refresh button.


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## Dangerfield

Hey, there's an August 17th Middle Fork permit showing as available/bookable right now 8:57pm Pac Time.

I know that it should not show since it's after the 15th - so take advantage of a glitch!

Jeeze there's a bunch bookable in September also. * I tried to book and YES it works*


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## Dangerfield

They're gone now but look for a September 2nd in about 10 minutes (9:16 Pac Time and after)


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## Dangerfield

Strange happenings.


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## okieboater

I do not know how the rec dot gov website is working for river permits but for booking Big Bend camp sites it is a mess.
Few days ago I did a reservation and the booking and paying process kept hanging up and resetting. I hit the gimme me 5 more minutes button so many times I lost count. My main problem was the system kept just hanging up. Also must have data would not update but would give you an error.

Bottom line is another lowest bidder computer program and no other way to book a campsite in Big Bend that I know of.


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## Inertiaman

okieboater said:


> I do not know how the rec dot gov website is working for river permits but for booking Big Bend camp sites it is a mess.
> Few days ago I did a reservation and the booking and paying process kept hanging up and resetting. I hit the gimme me 5 more minutes button so many times I lost count. My main problem was the system kept just hanging up. Also must have data would not update but would give you an error.


On the rare occasions that I have had similar hang-ups, it seemed related to multiple browser tabs on rec.gov and/or ambiguous login status. Closing all but one tab and refreshing my cart helped. Or worst case a logout/login cycle (which might briefly return campsite, but if you're quick back to site, usually not an issue to re-select).



okieboater said:


> Bottom line is another lowest bidder computer program and no other way to book a campsite in Big Bend that I know of.


Rec.gov is hardly a lowest bidder computer program. Its a huge and ongoing design and coding challenge. The scale of functionality is huge: likely millions of individual site/permit dates, 1000+ different park/river/resource sites each with their own policies, several different federal agencies, etc. I've worked rec.gov pretty hard in the past 6 months, and had only a couple minor issues that seemed to be my own doing. 

I know its popular here to complain about "wreck.gov" but personally I think it works pretty well.


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## okieboater

Well in the opinion of this gent who spent his entire working life running, programming, or managing computer based systems, Rec dot gov sucks and I would never have put the version in production right now in service. It hangs up or screws up way to much to be in production. And, complex programs do not get a pass on working in production at least in my opinion. By the way taking a order and making a reservation is not that complex.

But, that is just me, a retired old boater who remembers when stuff worked.


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## Dangerfield

There be a September 25 Middle Fork Permit showing available at 2:21PM Pac Time.


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## LJPurvis

duct tape said:


> Sprinter vans. Composting toilets. We’ve gotten a long way from the OP. Still focusing my internet rage at campnabbers profiting off public lands (which is no different in my book from outfitters putting so many trips down what was 30 years ago “my” Browns Canyon or ski areas charging $250 for where I used to backcountry ski). Non-profit bot? Hmmm - hey LPurvis, can I buy you a cup of coffee?


Man...am I way behind. I just saw this. Cups of coffee are always welcome.


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## griz

Looks like everyone canceled their late season MFS permits today. Wow. 9/23 into October all open.


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