I was under the impression that you could only reserve your pma permission in person when you pick your permit up, I got an e-mail from the forest service that said this. Has this changed? If so how do you reserve in advance? a call to the nearest forest service office? The only reason I ask is that when I went to spider last fall they only had a 3 ring binder and the forest service employee wasn't even clear on what we had to do, then a more knowledgeable employee came over and explained everything. Please clear this up for me

I have been told that one may reserve their PMA either in person or over the phone.

I think (not absolutely certain) that one needs to pick up their permit in person at the appropriate ranger station.

This is the process

Once you have your Entry point permit and a reservation number contact the USFS issuing station for that Entry Point. Try to call late in the day as the USFS employees are alwasy busy early in the day, especially after Memorial day. They will have more patience to deal with PMA's when they are not busy.

Have the name of your pma, the zone you want, the dates you want, Your EP and your reservation number ready. Do not expect the USFS to know the zone you need by saying that you want to camp on a certain lake-do your homework, not only will the call be more efficient but by seeming to be knowledgeable the call will be easier on both. Assume the person you will be talking to may not know.

If the person does not seem to know, ask for the Station supervisor or ask when a good time to call back would be. You should be able to reserve the PMA over the phone once you have your permit reservation but you will need to pick up the PMA reservation itself in person when you pick up your permit. It is just a written comment placed on the actual EP permit itself.

bogs thanks that clears it up quite a bit except that I am picking my permit up from my outfitter I suppose I can change this though.

I doubt the outfitter can put the PMA designation on your permit, but check with them-maybe they have authorization.

Otherwise you probably have time to switch the permit to be picked up at the Ranger station or just call and ask if they can pull your permit even though it has been designated to be pulled by an outfitter. Maybe ask that question when you call to reserve your PMA.

Good Luck, have fun, be safe.

My outfitter is issueing our PMA permit as well. I trust that they have it figured out.