Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Hypothetical: If You Spend The Night at the Summit Hut Will You Be Fined?

Question: If you are at the summit on a one day permit and a storm comes up out of nowhere and it storms so bad that you must spend the night in the hut, would the rangers fine you the next day as you came down?

P.S. I haven't had a permit checked by a ranger since 2001. Are they only working the weekends? Part of Calif. budget constraints?

The only ranger I talked to for my Whitney hike
was in their Lone Pine office while I picked up
my permits. Noone checked my permit out on the
trail from the Portal September 9th and I did
not see them checking anyone elses.

I have not had a ranger check my permit since 2003. That was in August. We summitted again at the beginning of September 2004.

The rangers are clearly on the trail, but when I went up in August I past quite a number of rangers going up or down, but none of them asked to see my permit.

-end

Having your permits checked must be a matter of timing...I've been there 7 years in a row, and I've had my permits checked every single time. 6 times between LPL and Trail Camp on the way up, but one year on my way down from the summit on the second day. I'm usually on my way up on a Friday (sometimes Sunday), with the summit hike being the next day.

Our permits were checked at Trail Camp August 16.