Vacation Stats - Day One

When I wrote "Ready. Set. Go!" yesterday, you really responded!

Our Trail Maintenance team was blown away by all of the early interest in Volunteer Vacations, Youth Vacations and Backcountry Response Team trips (BCRTs). I saw them staring at their computers with their jaws in their laps as trip after trip filled in the first hour. And when they weren't doing that, they were answering a flurry of phone calls.

How busy was it?

• The adult first trip - Cape Disappointment - filled in one minute, 23 seconds.
• The first youth trip - Beacon Rock - filled in five minutes, 55 seconds.
• There were 238 people signed up within the first hour; 100 in the first seven minutes!
• Our online payment system momentarily crashed from the simultaneous traffic.
• By 4pm, five Volunteer Vacations, four Youth Vacations and two BCRTs were completely filled - some with waitlists.

How did the staff predictions pan out?

They were spot-on with the first adult trip to fill (Cape Disappointment), but were surprised by the interest in the little-known Short Horn trail near Mt. Adams. Youth trips were a surprise as well, with Beacon Rock filling within six minutes. And this year, volunteers are showing more interest than ever before in the BCRT offerings.

The number of registrants by 4pm was more than double their prediction of 141 by day's end. And the 100th person to sign up came at 10:07am, not 10:59am. 

Yet despite the frenzy of Volunteer Vacation's opening day, there are still plenty of choices of vacations out there. But don't wait too long - they will fill!