Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Solicitation for Mt. Whitney Summit Trip partners

Hello:

My name is Kristen. I am a twenty-something woman residing in Culver City, who is scheduled to make a Mt Whitney Summit attempt between the dates of July 19th, 2007 and July 20th 2007. I became overambitious and dolled out an application for eight permits. Yes, I was successful in securing those permits.

Unfortunately a few members of my group have decided to do bail. As of today myself, my friend, and his girl friend are going to attempt the summit. I would like to extend an invitation to those on this board to fill 2-3 other spots. I have realised through training by myself and with other people that a group of 8 would be difficult challenge to manage. I plan on putting in some sort of paperwork to release the remaining permits before June ends.

If you are interested in joining myself and my friends, please shoot me a reply or an e-mail to krisk82@yahoo.com. I would prefer that you live in LA or Orange County so myself and my friends could meet you before committing.

Thanks.

Kristen

Hi Kristen,
So, you have overnight permits for July 19? I just wanted to clarify. I'm tempted, but it's probably not realistic for me to consider it. I'm leading a group of up to 7 (probably less) on a 3-day trip June 12-14, and will probably want to go again, but I'm pretty busy. Thanks for giving those on this board first shot, though.
Richard

Hello Kristen,

The simplest way to release your unused permit space is to call the Inyo National Forest Wilderness Permit Office at 760-873-2483 between 8 am and 4:30 pm.

I would agree with you that a group of eight is hard to manage. It is particularly hard for a group to stay together in the 97 switchbacks area.

Here is what I put in the orientation notes:

Easy to make this error.
I have previously done Whitney and wanted to have a group of friends join me this time. I cautiously dealt out invites and when the time came to submit an application for the lottery I had a group of 9! The group would be fairly evenly split between two skills/speed levels -- and yes two permit requests would have been better than 1.

I did get a 9-slot permit for this coming weekend, June 15/16 on the main trail.

My group however has dissolved to either 1 (me solo), 2, or 3.
Being Sunday and planning to leave Thursday I hope to get it clarified soon <g>.

Fred's idea of releasing the permits sounds like the most reasonable way overall. There are a lot of folks who tried but didn't get permits, and this might give some of them a second chance.

It's too bad that the lottery can't be expanded a bit to keep a "waiting list" of folks from the lottery who didn't get their name drawn (or at least to offer a waiting list based on the postmark date of their lottery submission). And maybe some incentive to turn in surplus permits (raise the permit price to $25 and offer $15 back if turned in a month before, $10 at 2 weeks, $5 for a week?). Or how about having each permit good for one named, specific person, hence less temptation to overapply? If plans changed and someone else wanted to join, they could do so by going along and hoping for a cancellation.

While those that lose on the lottery still have the option of showing up and hoping for a slot, for non-locals it's not very practical. Not being able to plan a date, arrange for camping or lodging, etc. makes the option of just showing up and hoping for a permit only practical for folks who live within an hour or two. I'm tempted to try this for a solo hike, but no way of getting the original group of 4 to all go on a 'maybe'.

Having smaller group-size limits might be a good idea, but where do you set the number? Certainly less than 15, I would think...that's 5 or 6 groups of 2 or 3 that would not get permits because of one group of 15...and how many of those 15 end up not going, or being transferred to someone else?

Gary, I asked the FS about the idea of giving refunds, with the amount depending on how far in advance the permits were released. The answer was that it is tough enough already to collect for the reservations. Giving back money would be far more difficult.

I would urge Kristen to do as Versatile Fred asked, call the Wilderness Permit office right away and release those unused permits. That way, others can call in and get the permit reservation, and can start planning their trip. For Kristen to try to add people to her group makes an already difficult planning and preparation task all that much harder.

Here is some important information: Whitney Trail Permits: Buying, selling or transferring

I guess refunding money for unused permits would be more complicated, but it seems like there should be a way of discouraging "overbooking" at least as much as possible.

$15 is pretty cheap for something as significant as Whitney, and since they can't just pop in and buy them, it's easy to figure on the high end of the high side, "just in case". Someone has 5 ambitious friends, so they need 6, and there may be others who want to come so they apply for 10, and get them. $150 is no big deal if you consider what's spent for gas and lodging and maybe equipment, so why not?

Then when it all comes down to reality, only two actually go...(What? Wag bag? What's that? I just remembered I, um, have to work that week... 8^)

How about an escalating price scale for larger groups? Say allow a group of 4 at regular price, but add a "large group" fee of $50 for each person over that. While that might impact a family of five or six, it wouldn't be too bad...$75 plus the $50 fee for 5 or $90 plus the two fees ($190) for six. Eight though, would be $320, then for more than 8 the fee would be 100 bucks apiece. While that would be over $1100 for a group of 15, how many groups of 10-15 actually do the MMWT, and is it a good idea to have a group that large?

That might keep the numbers down somewhat, and wouldn't raise prices for normal sized groups, besides allowing more to have a chance at it due to smaller size. It wouldn't prohibit larger groups, just discourage them a bit. It wouldn't be any extra work for the FS either, and if anything, they'd get more money without increasing the fee for most users of the trail.

Just an idea.

It certainly can be a problem either way.
When I did Whitney 10 yrs ago, I got two permits - the size of my group. Prior to leaving, a third person joined our group but she had a permit.

The day before leaving a fourth person joined the group.
She didn't have a permit. We eventually were able to get one more slot from the ranger station, but it delayed the start time by hours and threw off the whole hike in my opinion.

This time around I spent a lot of time coordinating with who wanted to go. I gave them a couple of opportunities to back out before I sent in the lottery application and committed.

I had 9 commits, and ~$150 charged with my lottery application!
Final group size.... 3. I am out of pocket 3x the cost, which is not a deal breaker, though I don't have extra money -- but only 1 of those other 6 people had a reasonable [medical] excuse for backing out after we got our dates.

The (6) unused slots for Entry on main trail on june 15th and exit from same on the 16th will be available from the ranger station and the forest service will reap the benefit of issuing them twice and collecting fees twice (and the administrative paperwork as well).

Just wanted to let others know I verified the return of six permits for this weekend in/out on Main whitney Trail. And post again with a different subject heading for added visibility.

Call the permit reservation office 760 873-2483 for details or their fax line to reserve.

Sorry for the short notice, but for those within a day's drive.... see you up there?