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

Also got our "thanks, but no thanks" letter yesterday, so much for "Back to Back" years. That actually makes us go somewhere else, might make it fun.

Put in for a M, T, or W in the 1st week of August for a day permit. Really surprised we got shot down..

Oh well, there are other mountains to climb!

Ron

Hi Before you give up on Whitney wait several weeks and a list will be out with the open days/nights you can then pick from those days , then if you do not want to pick a day from that list wait until the period you want to hike check the list again and if open call and request or if you can see many open spots on that day do a walk in the day before, each year over 3000 permits are not used. Thanks Doug

Ok so the unused permits # is around 8000 , but I think Early May and after Mid Oct border on a death wish if not experienced full winter mountaineering skilled.

I am a little surprised, too, Ron, since last year  (see Unused Whitney Permits - 2008),  every Wednesday in August had a minimum of 18 openings.  But there were more applications this year.

If you check both July and September from last year, you can see that you would have had a better chance if you had asked for the same week days in those months.

Steve: Just to let you know hoe it usually works is that every single day permit and overnight permit for the months of July and August are taken during the lottery process. In the six to seven months between February 1st, when people start to mail in for the lottery, and July and August, plans change. So in February someone thinks that they can hike on August 3rd, and gets the permits. But a week or two before hike day, something comes up that causes the person to cancel. The list you saw that showed the number of unused permits for each day is based on what is not picked up in Lone Pine.

Another option you have, if you want to roll the dice and gamble, is just show up a couple of days before you want to hike. If it is a weekday, Monday through Thursday, I can almost guarantee you that you will get the permits you need. There are that many no-shows or last minute cancellations. I still have not heard if I was successful for my group to hike on Thursday, July 30th. If we are not, that is exactly what we will do.

Whitney Mike

Whitney Mike wrote:
> Steve: Just to let you know hoe it usually works is that every single day permit and overnight permit for the months of July and August are taken during the lottery process.

I beg to differ, Mike. If you look carefully at that link I gave, you will see three columns: 4/1, Week Before, and Unused.

The 4/1 column are the numbers Inyo NF posted immediately after the lottery, showing what slots were still available after the lottery was completed. They will be posting that page again soon for this year's lottery.

The Week Before column are the numbers I gleaned from their page a week or so before the actual hike dates. You can see that those numbers are often lower than the post-lottery 4/1 column. That is because people phoned in to reserve whatever was left after the lottery. There are some blank areas because either I did not update the numbers often enough, or Inyo did not update their page.

The Unused column are the numbers Inyo posted AFTER the date showing numbers of permits that were still available at the end of each date, due to cancellations and no-shows, minus the permits they gave out for walk-ins requests.

I'll be posting a similar page for this year's numbers as soon as they are available.

Just got a $30.00 hit on my credit card for two permits. That makes six permits over 7 years through the lottery!! Hope to see many of you on the trail sometime in July/August.

Bob

My card was just hit this afternoon for two hikers doing an overnight. Don't know the dates yet. But, any time is fine with us.

Jim

WOOT! WOOT! WOOT! Ours showed up in the mail today! 9/05 - 9/07 - Main Whitney Trail! WOOT! WOOT! (Crap - that means I need to get ready for this....)

Glenn Jones, what part of California (or country) do you live in?

Southern Ca(OC) - this isn't Matt is it?

No, just trying to determine the recieve dates of different areas of CA from when INF mail dropped the letters. Just trying to be patient, but not working.

If it makes any of the Californians rest easy tonight, I'm in Texas and just got my "Thanks but no thanks." I would think that if any of you guys west of here and haven't recevied a negative yet, you're hopefully in the clear.

fyi - for my 10 options I asked for every weekday between mid and late June, for 3 permits. I'm shocked June's packed out. I thought I was strategizing well avoiding July and August.

Some buddies and I had been planning this trip for about a year. This kinda takes the wind out of my sails.

Any of you guys who have done it before, is it too risky to make the trip out and try for the no-show permits? I saw the numbers from '07 and '08 and there were quite a few no-shows every day, but do tons of other people come expecting the same?

AFields wrote:
> for my 10 options I asked for every weekday between mid and late June, for 3 permits. I'm shocked June's packed out.

Overnight, not day hike, right? Look at last year's numbers. All the overnight slots filled in June, but only two Saturdays in June were full for day hikes.

And look at the unused numbers in June -- for both dayhike and overnight, it is practically guaranteed that you can get no-show permits. Just plan your trip so you have one or two extra days, and if you don't get a walk-in permit the first day, you can always hang around for the next.

Hot dawg!! We got our dayhike permit in today's mail. Two people for Labor Day. The envelope was postmarked 3/31. Now we have to actually hike the thing.

Two more in here. I got it today. A day hike in late August. Congrats to all others that got in and good luck to those that try a walk in.

Hi all
Just got my permit today, but along with my permit is someone elses permit. I attempted to contact the Permit Center but as expected their phones are shut down today. Can someone offer me advise so this person can get their permit. Due to privacy I will only mention that the persons name on the permit is "Pamela B" for a permit of 3. Feel free to contact me on this post.
Good luck
Randy

The phone lines should be back up on Monday. You'll just have to wait till then, or you can try sending a fax to the office explaining the situation and asking them to call you.

Woo Hoo!! My credit card was just charged for 2 permits for a day (Saturday) hike in July/Aug or first 2 Saturdays in September. Just need to wait for the letter now with the date of permits. I'm sure more cc's are being charged today as well

That is interesting. So did they mail two different confirmation letters in the same envelope?

Yeah, they sent my confirmation and they also sent the other person's. I sent an email to the Forest Service, but have yet received a response (they're probably swamped still). I'll be hiking Saturday, so I'll try to call Sunday.