Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board New for 2008 Season

Hmmmm, although I haven't had a chance to read all the details on all of the links, it seems the net result for someone looking to do a dayhike up Whitney is a lower number of permits will be available with the new combined allocation?

It is good to reduce human traffic in "sensitive" areas, though it is interesting, relating to the thoughts of others commenting on places such as Yosemite where limitations are not as strictly enforced yet the amount of sensitive areas seems greater, especially given its lower altitude near the valley etc.

The two times I've been up Half Dome on day hikes I felt as though I was walking down Broadway in Times Square with a pack on! I certainly wouldn't mind doing that hike with 1/10th the traffic, esp. on the cables.

I picked a weekday in November, and saw about 10 people the entire day.



I cringe every time I see someone advocating fewer numbers of people. ...well, if it were a beautiful green meadow with people trampling all over it. But wait, that's Yosemite Valley. All they do there is put in some paths and and a few warning signs, and thousands of people will keep off the grass.

I just cannot accept that people are significantly degrading places like the MR. Yes, a few bushes are stunted when their branches extend into the beaten path. ...But on the Main Trail, they whack bushes and move rocks all over the place -- far more impact there.

A path leading through a rocky alpine canyon IS NOT significant degradation. It probably affects .01 per cent of the entire landscape.

Steve,

Based on Inyo's numbers, there are ~16 people/day who go up the MR during the quota period. Therefore, I would tend to a agree with you about the damage done to the area is minimal.

You can always use seasonality, day of the week and route to get a "wilderness" experience in the Mt. Whitney area. I would think most of us who frequent this board in non-quota time have.

With the self-proclaimed "success" of their pack it out program, I do not believe the Inyo can justify their quotas for the MMWT.

It depends on your timing. But you must admit it is nice to be able to choose when to go. As opposed to say, entering a lottery six months in advance, ending up with a midweek date because Saturday and Sunday are so much more popular, arriving the day before in order to stand in line to receive a wilderness briefing, and of course using your credit card to pay for the opportunity to hike up a trail with a whole bunch of other people.

We were lucky when we climbed Whitney in the fall: we had the summit to ourselves for the better part of an hour and saw about 20 people all day.

I'd have to disagree with you on the damage being done on the lower part of the mountain, both on the Main Trail and N.F. side. (There seems to be an increasing number of people who feel it's OK to cut switchbacks. And it shows.)

Above LBSL and Mirror Lake there isn't a whole lot of terrain that can be damaged (outside of "tick" marks from those darn poles people insist on using).

We'll see whether the lower portion of the N.F. recovers now that there is an "official" path up to LBSL.

It'll be interesting to see whether climbs up the N.F. become a problem this summer when I have to hope for leftover permits.

Oh, I only saw three people all day and had the summit to myself nine days ago. Become a winter mountaineer!

Well sorry but for some of us older folks the poles help ease the pain............

And the "lower part" you're referring to is open to travel without permits.

I noticed some strange rules:

1. Overnight permit cannot be used for a day hike.
Hmmmm? So I take it that if you get sick on your 1st day you can’t turn around and hike back down …… you gotta to stay up there for the night. Brutal

2. No consecutive day hikes.
Double Dang! Last year I got dayhike permits for 2 consecutive days. The 1st day I hiked up Mt Russell and then hiked up Whitney MR the next day. What’s wrong with that?

Overall, I think this new permit policy will really put the squeeze on folks that want to dayhike in the North Fork area. And I don’t need to remind everyone that the North Fork provides access to Mt Thor, Mt Russell, and many other wonderful Sierra peaks beside Mt Whitney.

I agree with the previous comments on the other thread that the main trail will suck up most of the dayhike permits and leave very few for the North Fork area.

This sucks!

Beats me!

Did you consider getting an overnight permit and doing Whitney the first day, camp, then do Russell the next day?

Would that include camping in Lone Pine at a hotel?

I would have to agree with you on this RAC... Half dome sometimes take 1.5 hours just to get up the cable due to traffic.

Even without the "No consecutive day hikes" rule, effectively, you couldn't.

Day one, you pick up your North Fork day hike permit. Day two, you hike anywhere in the North Fork. But if you want to also hike the North Fork on day three, you would have to check in at the Visitor Center in the afternoon to pick up the permit for Day three. So your first day hike would have to end by 4 PM in order to get back down in time.

> 2. No consecutive day hikes.

I heard somewhere that the purpose of this rule is to prevent people who could not get an overnight permit from trying to turn two consecutive day hikes into an overnighter.

does this mean we will no longer be able to pickup our permits via the dropbox for hiking in the North Fork - that will effectively cancel Saturday Whitney summits for us M-F working stiffs.

This is all very discouraging. I was planning this fall on doing the main trail, and then some other day hikes up the NF direction. Sounds like that isn't feasible any more, if I want to do consecutive day hikes. I don't know of any other area that has such restrictive rules. This is ridiculous.

Some additional details.....

Last September I called the Lone Pine Ranger Station and got 2 dayhike permits for 2 consecutive days (Sat & Sun). They made sure I wasn’t planning any sneaky overnite trip. I assured them that I was going to do 2 separate dayhikes (besides I only dayhike).

They placed the permits into the overnite lockbox so I could pick them up on Friday evening. Slept at the portal on Friday night, hiked Russell on Sat with permit #1, and enjoyed a burger and another sleep at the portal, then hike Whitney on Sun with permit #2; everything worked great.

As TomCat said, some of us M-F working stiffs might like the option of doing 2 dayhikes within the Whitney Zone on a particular weekend.

This still sucks!

Don't forget to use the 2008 forms for the lottery. Have fun.