I was happy to score 2 permits today for July 5th. I have never hiked the Mt. Whitney Trail before, and I have a couple of questions. First, is there a good sourcefor current trail conditions? I haven't seen many posts on the forum about that, but I may just be looking in the wrong place. The reason I would like to know is that we were thinking of doing a little exploratory hiking before May 1 when the lottery winners start hiking. We'd like to just hike out 2 or 3 miles then return to the Portal. However, I have no idea if that is even possible because of snow and ice. How would I be able to find out about trail conditions near the end of April?
Secondly, I assume I still would need to procure a permit for such a hike. Would I just show up at the Visitor's Center in Lone Pine the morning that we would like to do this? Is there anything else that we would need to do?
Thanks so much for your help!
