Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Permit System Permit System 2012

I just learned that this year you must have a Whitney day permit to climb anywhere in the Whitney zone including Russell, and all eastern aspect routes on Whitney.

How does this make any sense? Do the rangers actually think that the east buttress, east face and mountaineers routes are over crowded and need to be a part of the quota system?

I think this is completely ridiculous to institute on the north fork, main trail yes.

It's been this way for at least 2 or 3 years now.
When Main Trail quotas became more limited in the past, the "overflow" caused a corresponding uptick in use of the North Fork trail (Mountaineer's Route), and expanding the day permit into the entire Whitney Zone was likely a means to keep that trail from becoming over-used. A number of people do the MR, whether or not they do the East Buttress, East Face, or Russell.

CaT

I just do not see why in the world you should be denied the opportunity to climb the fish hook arete on Mt. Russell simply because you did not enter the Whitney main trail lottery system. I just cannot understand how me and my frineds climbing on Mt. Russell in anyway effects the Whitney experience. I did the east buttress last year on a weekend and we were issued a permit right away at the counter. I do not believe that east buttress was part of the main trail quota system last year. To me this is the rangers taking control over a situation that does not require controlling.

It stinks. But I don't think the problem is so much the summit routes but the approach route up North Fork through the brush and meadows that caused them to require the quota. But I agree, the NF quota should be separate from the main trail for day use.

I was told that the new policy was forced by the Park Service. SEKI was worried about day-climber accidents on the last 400' of the Mountaineer's Route--which is in their domain, not Inyo National Forest's.

Day climbers generally do not need a permit, and if there was an accident on the final 400', there was no record that anyone was there. It could be days before someone was noticed missing, and they are SEKI's responsibility. Having no way of requiring or issuing permits for this small area of the Park, SEKI convinced Inyo to do it for them.

Including the North Fork day climbers in the Mt. Whitney main trail day quota was intended to be a temporary measure until they could figure out a better solution. I am surprised that the policy is still in effect this year. Accidents on the final 400' do occur, but historically are not exactly common. Putting so many people out because of this relatively small problem seems akin to trying to kill a mouse with a howitzer. Besides, requiring a permit doesn't help the "missing person" issue very much, because people are not required to check out after their trip.

I have been very frustrated with the permit system for quite a while now. I do a decent amount of climbing in the Eastern Sierra, but rarely bother with Mt. Whitney and especially not during the quota period. It has been impossible for me to dayhike Russell because in order to do so I would have to wait around the morning of the hike to wait for a permit. I know the NF well, stay on the established trail, and don't go near the zoo that is Whitney so why should I have to be included in the mess that is the Whitney Zone permit process. The same issues apply to my attempts to climb the East Face/Buttress on Whitney (regarding getting a permit for an under used route, although obviously contradicts my sentiment above for avoiding whitney in general).

Even more absurd is the process for getting a permit in other areas of the Sierra. We are heading up to North Pal this weekend which I am sure there will be no one up there, maybe one other party at most.I tried to use the wonderful recreation.gov site and it repeatedly froze and I was unable to get the permits. I called the wilderness permit office and was told I needed to call recreation.gov to book the permit and pay all kinds of absurd reservation and processing fees for my "free" permit then I would have to call back to the permit office to request it be put in the night drop box. Option 2 is that I have to go on Sat morning before we begin our climb, which is fine except that I will have to go through the entire "lottery" process to get a spot in line to get a permit for the trail which will be empty. I know from past experience to set aside an hour for this. It feels that all the process is extremely cumbersome. I am an experience climber and backpacker and frequent the are often. My preferred trips are leaving Thursday or Friday after work and passing through LP late at night, getting to the TH, and then attempting my climb. It is ridiculous to have to add an additional day onto a weekend trip just for the sake of walking into the permit office to be told for the 100th time to camp 100 feet from water and pack out my trash.

I don't understand why there is not a more simplified way to get a permit and why some of the quotas are so ridiculously low. We went out of South Lake last year to do the Palisades Traverse and managed to get the "last 2 permits" yet once we got more than a couple of miles from the trailhead, we never saw another person. I know it is not an easy balance to provide access while preserving the area, but it is starting to get absurd that I can't go climbing on "public" land between May and September or if I do it becomes an ordeal to secure a permit without planning my trip 6 months in advance. A lot of the climbs are deeper in the backcountry and require a significant amount of approach time and are far from the high-use areas, yet I am essentially restricted from getting there due to the time-constraints of the permit process and the often very-low quota for many trails.