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Lottery Open For Self-Guided Grand Canyon River Trips

Earlier this week the National Park Service began accepting applications for permits to raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This highly competitive lottery is for 2017.

For many, the chance to run the Colorado River is a bucket list item.

The National Park Service says 472 permits are available for 12 to 25 day self-guided river trips in 2017. Last year, nearly 5,000 people applied in the main lottery. Follow up lotteries bumped that number to 7,000.

Applicants must be 18 or older and technical whitewater experience is mandatory. The lottery system replaced a waiting list in 2006. 

KJZZ senior field correspondent Kathy Ritchie has 20 years of experience reporting and writing stories for national and local media outlets — nearly a decade of it has been spent in public media.