If hiking or photographing The Wave is on your bucket list, you will be heartened by the news that more visitors may soon be allowed to trek the colourful sandstone rock formation, which is located in Arizona, near its northern border with Utah. The Wave is situated in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, and it got its name because its landscape has been eroded by the wind to resemble an ocean wave.
The Wave in Arizona may allow more visitors. Image: pick-uppath/Getty Images
Up to now, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has capped the number of daily permits at 20 to protect the fragile formation’s integrity and beauty. Ten of the permits can be reserved online four months in advance, through an online lottery that costs a non-refundable $5 (€4.47) per application. The other ten are given to walk-in visitors to the visitors’ centre in Kanab, on a first come, first served basis at a cost of $7 (€6.26) per person per day and $7 per dog.
The Wave is located in the desert close the border of Arizona and Utah. Image: Thomas Janisch/Getty Images/Flickr RF
Last year, 150,000 applications were made through an online lottery to take the 9.5km round-trip hike through the Coyote Buttes North section of the park to reach the site, and obviously the majority of those were unsuccessful. However, the BLM is considering raising the number of daily entries to 96, and is soliciting opinions from the public to see if they’d be in favour of such a measure.
The Wave is a colourful sandstone rock formation in Arizona that’s been eroded by the wind to resemble an ocean wave. Image: Aaron Meyers/Getty Images
If the visitor increase is approved, the new daily limit could take effect as soon as October this year, which will delight visitors as the site is obviously highly-Instagrammable. To apply for a permit through the online lottery, please see here, and further information on the proposed change to daily visitor numbers is available here.
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