Angels Landing Winter Lottery Closes October 20

If Angels Landing is on your list, the calendar just made the decision for you. Zion’s winter seasonal lottery is open now on Recreation.gov, and the application window closes October 20. That covers every hike date from December 1, 2026 through February 28, 2027, and once it closes, the day-before lottery is your only way in.

Winter at Zion is not the consolation prize. It is arguably the best version of this hike. The summer crowds are gone, the canyon light sits low and warm on the walls all afternoon, and for most of the winter window the park shuttle is not running, which means you drive your own car up the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive and park at the trailhead like it is 1995. There is exactly one catch, and it is a serious one: ice.

How the lottery works

The National Park Service runs the Angels Landing permit program on two tracks. The seasonal lottery opens quarterly application windows, and the winter window runs October 1 through October 20, with permits issued October 25. Everything happens on Recreation.gov. There is no walk-up option and no same-day permit.

The application costs $6, non-refundable, and covers up to six people. If your application is selected, each hiker pays an additional $3. When you apply, you rank up to seven preferred dates or date ranges in order of preference, and the system works down your list. Ranking one date is leaving six chances on the table, so rank all seven.

One detail worth knowing: the permit is only required for the half-mile chained section between Scout Lookout and the summit. The West Rim Trail up to Scout Lookout stays open without a permit, which means a losing lottery ticket still buys you one of the great viewpoints in the park system. It is a fine consolation, and in winter it is often the smarter call anyway.

Why winter is worth the application

Start with the crowds, or the absence of them. The permit program exists because the chains section is less than three feet wide in places with steep drop-offs on both sides, and summer turns it into a slow-moving line. Winter thins that out considerably. The park issues more than 200,000 Angels Landing permits a year, and the winter months account for a small fraction of them.

Then there is the driving. The Zion Canyon shuttle runs most of the year, and when it runs, private vehicles are barred from the Scenic Drive. In winter the schedule flips: no shuttle service from November 29 through December 25, a brief holiday run December 26 through January 2, then no service again from January 3 into early March. For nearly the entire winter lottery window, you drive yourself straight to the Grotto trailhead. One caution from the park’s traffic page: the Scenic Drive closes for the day when the legal parking fills, which does happen on fair-weather winter weekends. An early start still matters.

The ice caveat

Here is the part to take seriously. The park’s own permit page warns that ice and snow may be present on substantial portions of the trail throughout the winter, and calls the route extremely dangerous during icy or snowy conditions. The north-facing stretches above Scout Lookout hold ice well after a storm passes, and the chains are only helpful if your boots can grip what is under them.

The practical move is traction devices for your boots, the kind with actual spikes, not the coil-style slip-ons that are fine for an icy sidewalk and useless on a frozen traverse. Check the forecast the night before and the morning of. And set your turn-around line at Scout Lookout before you leave the trailhead: if the chains section looks glazed, the viewpoint is the hike. Nobody’s winter summit photo is worth the alternative.

The backup plan

If October 20 passes you by, the day-before lottery runs all winter. Apply on Recreation.gov between 12:01 a.m. and 3 p.m. Mountain Time the day before your intended hike, and you will have an answer by 4 p.m. It is a genuine second chance, not a formality, and winter’s thinner applicant pool works in your favor. But it is still a lottery. The seasonal application is the one you control, and it closes in fifteen days.

Trailhead basics

A winter permit application is free to think about and $6 to file. The hike itself runs on traction, water, and an early start. These earn their place in the daypack.

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• Ultima Replenisher electrolyte packets. Cold air is dry air. One stick per bottle keeps the dehydration headache away on the switchbacks.
• Disposable trash bags, 20 pack. Pack out everything, including the microtrash. Winter rangers notice who does not.
• Starbucks Premium Instant Coffee. The Scenic Drive parking fills on fair-weather winter weekends, so the early start wins. This works at a trailhead or a Springdale hotel room.
• Blue Lizard Sensitive Mineral Sunscreen SPF 50. Desert sun does not take the winter off, and snow glare off the canyon walls is real.

Clay’s Lowdown

Apply before October 20 on Recreation.gov. Rank seven dates, not one. If you are choosing weeks, aim for early December or late February for the best odds of bare trail, and build your itinerary so a storm day becomes a rest day in Springdale instead of a forced march. Bring spike-style traction devices whether the forecast mentions ice or not. Park at the Grotto early, because the Scenic Drive closes to new cars when the lots fill, permit or no permit. And decide at the trailhead, not at the chains, that Scout Lookout is a perfectly good summit if the rock is glazed.

Sources: NPS: 2026 Angels Landing Seasonal Lottery Dates; Recreation.gov: Angels Landing Winter permits.