For each quota'd trailhead, 50% of the quota is reservable on recreation.gov starting 6 months before entry (printable up to 7 days before entry); the remaining 50% opens 3 days before entry, printable immediately. Online purchase only -- no phone or in-person reservations. Trip leader must carry a signed physical (printed) copy for the whole trip.

Notes

Quota'd trailheads on the Humboldt-Toiyabe (Bridgeport RD) portion only: Buckeye Creek, Green Creek, Horse Creek, Leavitt Meadows, Little Slide Canyon, Robinson Creek (the trail out of Twin Lakes/Mono Village), and Virginia Lakes. A permit is required year-round for overnight stays even outside the Jun 15 - Oct 15 quota window, but the source does not state the off-season issuance method -- call the Bridgeport Ranger District (760-932-7070, Mon-Fri 8:30am-4pm PST) rather than assuming free self-issue.

Travel into neighbouring units

Confirmed: a Hoover Wilderness permit is honored for continuous travel into Yosemite National Park, Inyo National Forest, or Stanislaus National Forest without a separate permit -- 'with exceptions' per the source (e.g. the stricter 8-person/no-stock Sawtooth Ridge Zone cap still applies, and each area's own group-size/food-storage/campfire rules must still be followed). Applies e.g. to Twin Lakes via Robinson Creek/Peeler Lake/Rock Island Pass into Kerrick Canyon for Tower Peak.

Rules in force

What applies once you hold the permit. Rules marked with a scope other than "this permit" are inherited — state law or an agency-wide policy — and are stored once rather than restated per permit.

Fire

A free California Campfire Permit is required before you may have a campfire, camp stove, lantern or barbeque -- but holding one does NOT mean fires are allowed where you're going. Local restrictions override it. Two different permits exist; for everywhere this project covers, take the one for federal- and state-controlled lands, not the private-lands one. CA state law

TWO PERMIT TYPES, and the wrong one is not a valid document. CAL FIRE issues one permit for federal- and state-controlled lands, covering campfires, barbeques and portable stoves, and a separate one for private lands, which additionally requires written permission from the landowner. Both carry the same caveat that local burn restrictions may apply. Every trailhead in this project sits on federal land -- national forest, national park, BLM, or the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit -- except two on East Bay Regional Park District land (Del Valle and Stanford Ave), which is a special district fitting neither category cleanly; which permit applies there is not confirmed. The same portal also issues permits for burning debris, which is a different product and not what a backcountry traveller needs. THE PERMIT IS A PRECONDITION, NOT AN AUTHORISATION: CAL FIRE's own guidance says to check local rules, since many areas restrict or ban campfires outright, especially at elevation or in high fire danger. Where a wilderness bans fires, the permit still matters for a camp stove. YOU MUST CARRY IT: Eldorado NF states the permit has to be available for rangers and other officials to check while you are camping, so an unproduced permit is a permit you do not have. The lantern question is settled: CAL FIRE's permits FAQ omits lanterns from its enumeration, but the campfire-safety page and Eldorado NF's own FAQ both include them, so the fuller list stands on two sources against one summary. The issuing forest states it is also required in some developed campgrounds -- being in a campground is not a reliable exemption. Free, valid for a full calendar year (January 1 to December 31), and available from CAL FIRE, US Forest Service or BLM offices as well as online. The signer must be 18 or older, so a group of minors cannot self-issue. Obtain it at readyforwildfire.org/permits, which links to the portal at permit.preventwildfiresca.org. NOTE: Eldorado NF's own camping page cites 'www.preventwildfiresca.org', which does not resolve -- readyforwildfire.org is the working entry point. · 36 CFR 261.52(k); PRC 4433 · source

Verified 2026-09-12 · evidence none-2026-09-12-01, none-2026-09-12-02, none-2026-09-12-03, none-2026-09-12-04

Group size

Maximum group size is 15 people and 25 stock -- except the Sawtooth Ridge Zone, which caps at 8 people and allows no stock.

The Sawtooth Ridge Zone covers the Matterhorn, Whorl and Virginia Peak area reached from the Robinson Creek / Twin Lakes trailhead. The stricter cap follows you there even on a permit issued for the wider wilderness, and it still applies when a Hoover permit is honoured for continuous travel into a neighbouring unit. · source

Verified 2026-07-22 · evidence hoover-2026-07-22-01, hoover-2026-07-22-02

Location

Peaks nearest this trailhead (2)

Assigned by straight-line proximity, not by a verified approach. Permits attach to where you enter the wilderness, so a peak listed here may well be climbed from somewhere else -- and a long point-to-point route may pass peaks that list a different trailhead entirely. Treat this as a starting point, not an approach list.

Provenance

Those are different claims: a source can be current and still not have been re-checked here recently.

Checked	Verdict	Source
2026-07-22 hoover-2026-07-22-01	new-group Initial 50%-at-6mo/50%-at-3day split figure from web-search synthesis, no single primary page.
2026-07-22 hoover-2026-07-22-02	corrects-existing CONFIRMED the 50/50 6mo/3day split from web-search. CORRECTED the quota'd trailhead list: official list is Buckeye Creek, Green Creek, Horse Creek, Leavitt Meadows, Little Slide Canyon, Robinson Creek, Virginia Lakes -- not "Green Lakes" (wrong name) or "Twin Lakes" (the trailhead is officially named Robinson Creek). Removed an unconfirmed off-season self-issue claim; source doesn't state the off-season issuance method.	source

Leavitt Meadows

Permit

Key dates

How reservations work