Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Permit System Walk In Day Permits

Hi All,

I've been attempting to get a walk-in permit to day hike Whitney (actually Russell but it's the same permit) for about 10 days now and I've noticed that there are very few available on the recreation.gov site even after the no-show time of noon everyday. Is there a reason for this? Out of 100 day permits available everyday I would expect that at least 4 or more would be no-shows but the most that I've seen so far is 3 permits that were available on one day. Up until the pandemic you had to show up in person to claim a permit, right? And if you didn't show up then the permit was released to be reassigned to the walk-in permit pool. Now, since everything has been moved to online only permit issuance, nobody checks to see if the person that has the permit is actually going to show up and go, hence the no-shows never get released to be reassigned. People who don't cancel their permits when they don't go are never found out by the Rangers at the Inter-Agency Center and thus the permit goes unused. Is this a fair description of the current situation? I know that this is the busiest of all seasons on the mountain but it just seems odd that there aren't more walk-in permits available online.

Best,

Mark

You are correct for the most part. The FS was moving toward this prior to COVID, but that just sped up the transition. And since refunds for permit cancelations are almost zero, there's no incentive to report no-shows, other than being a good Samaritan.

Also of note, rangers are on the mountain and patrolling and checking permits, more so than previous years. I wouldn't risk going past LP Lake, or LBSL without one.

This relatively new system of not allowing walk-ins for no shows is a joke and totally unfair. getting a permit in the lottery has always been against odds, but the 7 or 8 times i have done Whitney i have rolled the dice every time and drove up hoping for no shows with success every time! on the day that the permits are required to be picked up but are not by the deadline of noon, it makes zero sense not to hand them out, even if you have to pay for them even if there was no refund!