u/Agreeable-Cloud7833

Hi everyone, I just wanted to reach out as someone from the east coast with very little access to National Parks. The concept of the reservation camping permit system is a little outside my comprehension, and in truth the available resources I'm seeing aren't really making it much easier.

I want to find availability for each of the major hiking loops, but the permit availability page is yielding information I don't quite understand. I know roughly when I'd like to attend and pretty much what I want to do (the longest trip I can manage), but the "Starting Zone" selections are a little obtuse to me. I'm perusing the maps that the NPS has to see if I can find the listed locations and in a couple cases I know what they're referencing (at least kind of, what exactly does "Jackson Lake" mean? The whole thing?) but if I'm trying to do a specific multi night hike I don't really know what starting zone I should be selecting and how many of these permits I need to be reserving. One for each date I'm out there?

I've found some resources online about the other stuff I need to be keeping in mind before going, but it's pretty obvious to me the most important thing is securing a permit before I go out there because I want to make the most of the very rare opportunity I'll have to travel this far west and actually backcountry camp. My plan was to do this for late May (yes you have permission to yell at me about this being impossible at this stage) but I just want to know how to parse this to figure out whether it is indeed impossible and then how I should change my plans if needed.

Thanks guys!