Dinosaur, CO & Jensen, UT— The lottery is now open for the noncommercial river permits for the high use season on the Green and Yampa Rivers in Dinosaur National Monument. Applicants can access and submit the form by logging onto www.recreation.gov.
The open lottery season for noncommercial high use season river permits runs from December 1, 2015 to January 31, 2016. All lottery applications must be submitted by 10:00 pm Mountain Standard Time on January 31, 21016. The lottery allows boaters to compete for the 300 permits that are available for the high use season. In recent years, the monument has received over 6,700 applications for the available permits. Boaters can either apply at www.recreation.gov or they can download the application form from the monument website and then mail the completed application to the monument with a postmark before the deadline. Late applications will not be accepted. This will be the final year that the monument will accept paper applications.
Like last year, boaters can file only one application, but they may choose up to four possible launch date/river choices on the application. The Yampa and Green rivers are combined in one drawing system. Applicants will be notified by email on February 16, 2016 if their lottery submission was successful. Winners have until 10:00 PM Mountain Standard Time on February 28 to accept their launch date and pay for it or it will be revoked.
On March 1 at 8:00 AM, all unclaimed high use multi-day, Split Mountain day use, and low use season multi-day permits will become available on recreation.gov. Preference will no longer be given to those who applied but failed to secure a river permit through the lottery system. Boaters who are able to acquire a permit online will have to immediately pay the $185 multi-day permit fee or $20 daily fee and an application fee of $15 to secure their permit. The application fee is required regardless of whether or not the boater applied for the lottery.
For more information on the river permit lottery or permit process, visit www.recreation.gov or www.nps.gov/dino. For river flows and available permits, please call the automated river phone line at (866) 825-2995. Remaining available permits are issued first-come, first-served through recreation.gov. If you have additional questions, you can also call the river office at (970) 374-2468 8:00 AM to Noon, Monday through Friday.
For visitors without the equipment or ability to boat Dinosaur’s rivers, but who still want to enjoy a river trip, several companies are authorized to provide commercial-guided trips. You can find more information about our boating concessionaires on the monument’s website www.nps.gov/dino. You can also call our main information line at (435) 781-7700.
A raft floats through the canyons on the Yampa River in Dinosaur National Monument
NPS/Jacob W. Frank