Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Permit question

Faxed my request in on feb 2. no charge on visa.
What are my options for a overnight hike now?
Want to go in july, aug. 2 years ago got permits for overnight.

Thanks for help

Bill

My question above is: Applied for whitney permit.
appears did not get picked. What other options do I have to get overnight permit?

Don't give up yet you still might get your permit confirmation.

JJBB

a friend of mine called Inyo Forest folks Monday and tried to try to cancel her whitney lottery permit request and was told that they couldn't pull her out at this point and it will continue til the 15th of March or so, thus you are probably still in the hunt.

Same here BillT I faxed on Feb 2 and still no reply. I haven't given up but I'm sure the chances are getting slim. I decided I still wanted to go so I called Inyo and got a permit for the Cottonwood pass route with a trail crest exit permit. No lottery to deal with but trip will take a couple more days. I understand sometime in May they put up the remaining Main trail permits and you can phone in for them but it will be a race to get them. Check inyos web site. www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/

BillT - unclaimed permits are handed out at 10AM on the day they are valid for. It's a gamble, but worth trying if all else fails. Check with the Lone Pine ranger station for details. Good luck!

I called the Whitney trail people yesterday because I had faxed on the 2nd of February as well and have not been charged and have not received any notice. They told me that they had not gone through all of the lottery applications and did not expect to finish until the end of March! So there is still hope. Also, I asked what the odds were for someone with 2 people in their group with 8 alternate days (all Friday-Monday day hikes). He said he would be very surprised if we did not get a permit.

Good luck to everyone.

-end

I would think you should definitely get your permit request. I never thought we would since we applied for 13 permits for Aug. 26, 27, and 28, and we were notified on Monday that we got them all. I was pretty surprised. I also think we sent ours in on February 6th, so I don't know what the heck it is they go by.

The Forest Service will send you a "sorry" letter if you don't get picked for a permit slot. Good luck.

JJBB

What they "go by" is that all applications that are subject to the lottery and which are received between Feb 1-14 are thrown into the same "pool" from which the Forest Service folks don't begin to randomly draw until Feb 15. So whether yours was sent/faxed on Feb 2 or Feb 6 makes no difference. The selection from this "pool" of qualifying applications is random, not by date received. Then, the remaining applications that are received between Feb 15-29 are added into the same "pool" as they come in. Obviously, processing all this takes some time.

CaT

I just found a charge on my Master Card this morning. I faxed my request on the 2nd for a 2 person day hike on one of eight days. Now I just need to wait and find out what day we got.

Good luck to everyone still waiting.

-end