Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Re: Lottery Processing Progress

Happy Presidents Day.

Just a reminder that the Mount Whitney Lottery starts tomorrow (instead of February 15) as a result of the holiday weekend this year. Applications can still be submitted as long as they are postmarked by February 28.

Also note that last year the initial emphasis was on determining who would not get a permit reservation. That meant that many people who had reservations were not notified until late March even though they had a reservation a lot earlier.

Please be patient! Just because you are not notified right away does not necessarily mean that something bad happened.

Good luck to all in the lottery that begins on Tuesday. I hope that as many people as possible are successful and get to hike one of my most favorite places on earth. I know I will start to check my credit card in a couple of weeks for that all important charge. Whitney Mike

got my "good luck" postcard back last saturday - feb 20.

good luck to all.

Hmmm... I'll have to be on the lookout for that. Guess I'll drop by the office...

It's been a while since I've applied for a Whitney Permit like this (I usually come in on a permit entering from the west side). I've aready sent my application in, but I'm just curious about the next process.

I understand that the Wilderness Office started drawing applications on the 17th. Do they draw out a specific number of applications per day, or continue to draw applications until a specific number of hikers has been met per day?

One of the posters mentioned watching their credit card for the application charges... do you know if these charges are entered immediately, or are they delayed. The reason why I ask is that if they started drawing on the 17th, and today's the 25th, there aren't very many days left to be drawn. I've not seen anything on the CC yet, so I'm getting a little nervous.

I'd LIKE to ask if there was any way of finding out what dates were issued for their permit sooner than April (if there were additional dates listed as options), but I think that answer's "No".

Thanks!

I do not understand what you mean about February 25 (today) being a bad sign. Lottery applications are still being accepted as long as they are postmarked by February 28. Most of the processing occurs in March and a lot of people do not get the word until the end of March.

See what was posted on the Board in March 2008. As you can see, a lot of people were notified late in March, including somebody who got his first pick.

Rosabella... last year we had our reservation confirmation "Congrats" letter before any payment cleared the account... I think they hold most and do one or two lump deposits after the drawing is done... don't sweat it yet!

I see where I was mistaken - I confused the last "postmark" date (Feb. 28th) with the last day to be drawn. Duhhh...

OK, so I'll just be patient.

Fred, thanks for the link for the 2008 lottery thread. I just finished reading the 6 pages. It was encouraging. Looks like mid-to-late March was when most people got their notices.

I submitted four pages of date options, so I hope at least one of these date options will have space. The biggest challenge is that I applied for 15 people - overnight.

We'll see.

Fifteen people! Your biggest challenge is to get that many people to stay committed to doing the hike. I believe that it was last year when somebody posted that he had reserved 15 spaces and all of his friends had cancelled out.

I saw that in the thread from last year...

With a group this big there's always going to be some last minute changes in plans, but I'm from a family of thirteen kids, and this is a really special anniversary hike for us.

Bump. It is only the beginning of March. Please be patient.

I received some information from Inyo N.F:

5,854 applications or permits? If they received that many application with say 4 people on average per application x $15 a person...........WOW

Not exactly.... They only charge for the permits that are successful. For the rejected ones, checks are returned and credit cards are not charged.

And with a quota of 100 dayhikers and 60 overnighters, that is only 160 entries per day. Not counting the mostly unfilled dates in May and October, that is only about 120 days x 160 per day = 19,200 slots. 5800 x 4 = 42,400 slots applied. That would result in a 55% rejection rate.

I see. Still a good amount of money.

Wow, I don't see that. $285,000, if 19,000 permits issued.

From the Inyo site:

"Wilderness reservation fees are presently being used to provide the planning and design for the replacement of toilet facilities at Outpost and Trail Camps on the Mt. Whitney Trail, as well as staff the Wilderness Permit Reservation Office, increase ranger presence throughout the Forest, publish specific wilderness information, and install bear-proof lockers at wilderness trailheads."

As most know, personnel is the biggest expense in most enterprises. As noted above, two sets of people are paid for by these fees. If these folks are paid $50,000 a year, including benefits, that is 5.7 employees. That is not many people.

I have an update from Inyo N.F.

Lottery progress,
We are still in the "Draw Applications and Allocate Reservations" phase.  Due to a few setbacks, (staff with the flu and covering other duties for staff with the flu) we are behind schedule for reserving.  We will begin sending out the unsuccessful letters soon.  If you do not get a regrets letter, your application is either not drawn yet, or is allocated a reservation and pending the fee collection and confirmation letter steps.  We cannot tell you which pile your application is in.  We can tell you we are trying to complete these as quickly as possible so you all can get the news.  Hopefully we can pick up the pace for the next few weeks and still make the April 1st target date for finishing the lottery.

As of close of business on 3/11/2009:
    5,983 Total applications sent to the lottery (this is up from previous years.)
    315 Number rejected (these were sent back with the option of the visitor correcting and resubmitting the application)
    131 Number of unsuccessful (no space left when drawn, for the dates and group size requested)
    1,985 Number of successful (reservations allocated, pending credit card and check deposit)
    only 3,552 to go!

As a reminder... They have asked before that people should not call and inquire about an application's status. That just slows down the progress, and it is impossible to locate a specific permit application.

Is it safe to assume that the most popular dates are weekends in July and August? There are only 2 of us on the application I submitted. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we got one of the 10 dates we submitted.

Leigh-Ann

Most popular are Friday / Saturday entry dates, and for overnight backpacking. Day hike permits are more plentiful and lower demand.

If you look here Unused Whitney Permits - 2008, you can see in the 4/1 column what was left after the lottery applications were processed last year.