 The most exclusive, unique, and breathtaking of all United States destination hikes is the wave. A photographer and hiker's dream, the formation of the wave began 190 million years ago when desert sand dunes compacted and solidified into striped sandstone. Millions of years of wind and rain erosion have uncovered and shaped what we see today. I want a permit to hike the wave, and I'll share with you in this video how you could win a permit, what you'll need for the hike, and everything else you need to know about hiking the wave. On the border of Utah and Arizona, the wave is located in the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument between Page, Arizona, and Kanab, Utah. Before we get into the permits and permitting process, it's important to know how and why this remote hike got so popular worldwide. Before the 1990s, the wave was a local secret and mostly unknown. Sometime in the mid-90s, according to the BLM, a European film crew illegally filmed at the wave and after the release of the film in Europe, foreign visitors overwhelmed the BLM with high numbers and demand to see the wave. And then in 2009, Windows added a photo of the wave to their new operating system, Windows 7, as a wallpaper or home screen, and suddenly millions of people around the world were introduced to the wave. From there, the popularity of the wave grew like a wildfire. By then, BLM had already established a permit system. Due to the overwhelming popularity of the wave, the Bureau of Land Management limits foot traffic to 20 people per day. Everyone must have a permit. There are two ways to win a permit to hike the wave. The first is through the internet lottery on the BLM website. The second is in-person lottery held Monday through Friday in Kanab, Utah at the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument Visitor Center. The 20 permits are split evenly, 10 through the in-person lottery and 10 through the website lottery. To apply for a wave permit online, start at the Coyote Buttes North Lottery page on the BLM website. Applications for the online lottery open at 12 p.m. mountain time on the first of every month for the chance to win a permit four months later. I will throw a link to that site below the video in the description section for you. Feel free to hit the like button on your way by. It's helpful and easy. In this section here, you will have to choose which dates you want for the hike in case you win. While you choose three days, you can only win one of them. In this section here in this table, you'll be able to see four months ahead and you'll be able to see how many people have applied for each day and how many requests for that day. There are allowed groups up to six people per group. Here's the number of requests for each day and there's still some time left in this month and here's the number of people in those groups. So to better your chances, take a look at those dates right there and then pick accordingly. There's a $5 lottery fee and it's non-refundable whether you win or lose. If you win, you still have to pay the $7 for the permit. Here are some tips to increase your chances of winning at the online lottery. Enter at the end of the month. You can see which days have lower or higher applicants by waiting until the end of the month and it's not on a first come first serve basis. Choose the lower sought after days. This will increase your chances of winning. January and February are the least sought after months. Trying for these will increase your chances. Enter often. You can apply every day for the $5 non-refundable application fee. Keep in mind the application process is for hiking dates four months in the future. The best way to get a permit is to go to the live permit drawing in Kanab, Utah, if you can. I was in the area and took the chance when I won. Half of the permits are awarded this way. Arrive before 8.30 a.m. to submit your application. The lottery for the next day's permit takes place at 9 a.m. sharp. On Fridays, they draw for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. So it's a great day to go because you got a chance at all three days. Only 10 permits are issued each day and only one person from each group is allowed to submit an application. After all the applications are in, the rangers go through the permit lottery process and draw numbers. All right, here we go for Monday. We have 10 spots for Monday. We're narrowing it down, so there is an odd to get a little better for those that are sticking around. Remember that winning the lottery is only about 20% of your whole process to getting out through the wave. Another 20% is the trail getting from the trailhead to the wave. That other like 60% in between there, that's the road. So keep that in mind. Even though you got better odds of winning the lottery, you're not at the wave yet. Number one. Group of two for Joe. All right, so that makes two down eight to go. Number 19. Yeah, this is my second time. It's a group of four. Let's bring the total to six. We have four spots remaining. Same rules apply. If you are a group larger than four, you will only be able to bring four. So keep that in mind. You can't always pass if you don't want to leave people behind. You have an email or anywhere I can send you some questions. I'm heading in Monday, so just a couple questions after you do it would be great. All right. Number 12. They're not here. Thank you. I just want to see how it goes. I got four wheels. Number 29 is pulled out. All right. Number 22. I drive a Jeep at home. That's it. All right. Well, thank you, everyone. If you did win a permit, please stick around. We will collect fees into a short orientation. You do have a little bit of time to go get your fees if you still need to collect your fees. Seven dollars per person and per dog. If you're lucky enough to win a permit like I was, after the drawing there's a prolonged orientation. The Rangers will try to scare you in many ways and might talk to you like you were a child. When I was there in March, the Rangers talked about the road being impassable. They promised that people will have huge towing bills. They said many will not make it to the hike and will have to forfeit their permits. One Ranger even bet his life that people would be stuck. They had also said they had not been in for a month and they had not heard from how people did on the road the day before. So I put those together and decided to chance it anyway. While some of their warnings should be heated about the heat and the hike itself, don't be overly scared about the road conditions. After all of their warnings, I drove in with a four-wheel drive vehicle and never took it out of two-wheel drive. I'm sure the road can get bad, but the reporting of the road conditions should be more realistic. Do you guys hear when people get stuck out there? No. Oh no. I was just wondering if the people yesterday made it in and out. It sounded pretty gloomy yesterday. First off, if you haven't seen the photos, this is photos of what the road looks like. Minus the snow. The snow has melted. But imagine the snow melted on top of the water that's already there. And then with a 30% chance of snow pretty much throughout the weekend, you're going to expect that road to get worse. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, but it doesn't mean the road is going to get any better. You do have one crossing. You're going to have to cross that is flowing right now. This is buckskin. It can flow anywhere from two and a half to four feet deep. It does have cut banks on both sides of that crossing. So four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicles are recommended to go out to this area. And if you don't have experience driving a four-wheel drive in these conditions, we would recommend you do not attempt to try to go for the lottery. There is no refunds. There is no rescheduling. And if you do win a permit, you cannot apply for two weeks after that. That list also includes four-wheel drive rentals and includes the tow truck numbers if you need that also, which you probably will. Keep in mind with the tow trucks. It is a pretty high fee to come and get your car pulled out, usually about $800 to $1,000. Did anybody get stuck yesterday? I don't know. I went by the road. I chose not to go on it. The drive is going to be your hardest challenge in this adventure. You may not make it to the wave. I would bet my life that one of the groups in here at least will not make it there on the day of your permit. This is our center in Cannab's over here. What you're going to do is you're going to get on 89, like you're heading towards Page. Page is if you follow 89, Page is all the way over here. This is in Arizona. This Cannab is in Utah. But you get on this, I think it's like 38 miles or so. But you see this really large bend in the road right here? You basically have like a nice gradual bend there, then a super sharp bend in this corner. And you're in between two kind of high ridge mountain chains kind of right there. But right there where the sharpest bend in the entire route 89 is, there's a pull off to the right where there's a break in the guardrail. And I think there's a sign that says like icy road or something like that, usually in the winter, maybe slippery in the summer. But that's actually the start of House Rock Valley Road. And it turns to dirt right there. And what you're going to do is you're going to take your right off that if you were heading to Page. And you're going to follow that road for about eight miles or so. You got a couple, there's like buckskin gulch, I guess, over here, wire pass to buckskin gulch again. And this is where you're going to park for the wave. Just stay right on that road until you see a really nice pull off on your right, a parking area. And this is a bathroom right here. If you need it, it's kind of, you know, some nice, nice facilities to have out in the middle of the desert like that. But this is where you park. You're going to walk across this House Rock Valley Road into Coyote Wash. And this is like super easy to follow. You could drive a Mack truck down that Coyote Wash. And you're going to follow that for a while. Don't fall for a couple of false trails coming off that like in this area right here. And all until you see this really nice beaten down trail right here. And there'll be like a sign somewhere up in this area right here. And this is actually the wave trail. So if you don't have a permit for the wave, there'll be people that are hiking to have permits to go further out in the Coyote Gulch or other areas. But if you have your permit for the wave, this is where you turn off right here. And this is really nicely beaten down from all the people over the years all the way until you hit the rock. So this is all sand right through here. You can't miss it. You can't lose the trail in this section right here. And until you cross this Gulch or we're going to call it a wash or a valley or a vene or whatever we call it right here. But once you cross this, you're into the rocks. Okay. And then it gets really hard to find and follow the trail. It's not quite as easy as this really well beaten down path that you can see from satellite view. Now you could cross right here like most people do just straight across. It's easy. Or you could walk down this ravine and Gulch and then you'll have a little bit steeper climb here. Either way is fine. I came back somewhere through here on the way out to the wave I crossed right here. And then once you cross this, you're going to want to follow the map that they give you at the visitor center because it has some really detailed pictures. It has some GPS waypoints too. I didn't use a GPS. I just use the map with the pictures. And you can kind of see the footprints. If you're a decent tracker, you'll be able to find the footprints that people leave in the rocks, you know, kicking up the dust from the sand and beating down the rocks over the years. But for the most part, it's a little bit tougher trail to follow from here on in. And once you follow your map, you know, take some pictures on the way out if you have your camera or your phone of some landmark. So when you're heading back out away from the wave back to your vehicle, you'll have something for a reference to check to see where you turn at each time. There aren't a lot of turns, but there are some. So you're going to follow this, keeping this mountain chain on your right as you head into Arizona. You're going to cross this really nice low sandy area right here, another wash. And then before you know it, there you are. You're at the wave. And basically this is the wave right here, right in this sandstone right here. There's some people on the satellite view taking some pictures of that main picture spot that most people take. And then once you're out there, if you have some extra time, there's some other stuff to look at. You know, there's the mini wave. There's a second wave, sand cove. There's dinosaur tracks over here. You can climb up on top of these high 60 footers or whatever they are. I don't know how tall they are, but there's an alcove, melody arch. There's a really pretty arch over here, Big Mac. And a bunch of other stuff to hike around. If you leave enough time and you have enough energy after you visited the wave. And then of course leaving, you're going to go the same way out and right there in your car. So all in all, that hike's about, I want to say somewhere around six miles. What should you wear? Definitely wear good supporting hiking boots. You're going to be going over sand, gravel and rocks. There is some light climbing involved and make sure you have good hiking footwear. Depending on what time of year your hike is, dress accordingly. It can get over 100 degrees in the summer and can snow in the winter. Pack an extra pair of socks and bring extra clothing so you can change into something dry if you perspire on the way in or if you need another layer as the sun sets. Dress in layers in the winter as there can be 50 degree temperature swings from daylight to dawn. Also wear sunblocker and or a wide brimmed hat to block the sun. There's very little to no shade on this hike. What to carry? Everyone recommends bringing a minimum of three liters of water. Not being used to that climate, I took six and I was glad I did. It's a day trip so pack in some good energy food. Bananas, granola bars, jerky, chocolate are all good examples and also bring in a lunch. Bring in a camera. The views are so amazing in there you will want to have them forever and maybe an extra battery for your camera. Bring a map. The BLM Wave map is excellent. It had stage by stage pictures to follow that were perfect. It's very hard to get lost with a map like that. Also carry in your change of clothes and dry socks and also pack a flashlight just in case you have to come out after dark. Paces to stay. Both Canab and Page are fairly the same distance away from the wave and both have plenty of amenities. There's several hotels, motels, Airbnbs and even camping areas in Canab, Utah and Page, Arizona. Each town is about 45 minutes to an hour drive on 89 to get to the beginning of House Rock Valley Road. When I visited the wave, I was vehicle camping and I actually slept right here a couple nights. This is a pretty cool place to sleep. It's called the Paraya Townsite. It's just a parking area right off the Route 89 and it was fairly close to the mouth of the House Rock Valley Road right here so I got a pretty good start in the morning. No one bothered me there. I stayed a couple nights. The driver's joined in and we had a great time. There are no facilities there. If you are in the area trying to draw a permit or you drew one for the next day or you travel in early after winning an online permit, I will share with you a few of the things you can do. The hikes and views within an hour or two of the wave are endless and amazing. Here are just a couple of things that I checked out. The Toadstool Hoodoos are very close to the intersection of Route 89 and House Rock Valley Road. Amazing formations also created by compacted sand and millions of years of wind and rain erosion. It's a fairly short and easy hike in. The trail is beaten down into the desert and easy to follow. The antelope slot canyons are in Page, Arizona. They are amazing. There's an upper and lower canyon. They are both pay to play. You must have a Navajo tour guide and the cost ranges from $50 to $100 per person. If I had to choose just one between the upper and lower, I would pick the lower antelope canyon. But it's a close choice either way. Also in Page, Arizona is Horseshoe Bend. This is an amazing overlook of a big bend in the Colorado River. The edge is sharp and incredibly steep. Several people die every year to get a perfect Instagram shot. So be careful how close you get to the edge. There is a new parking fee at Horseshoe Bend. $10 per vehicle. Otherwise it's free to hike in at a very short hike to see the bend. Hopefully that answers everything you need to know about hiking the wave. Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments section below and leave a comment. 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