This is my first time trying for a summit permit, but I guess I just wasn't meant to summit Whitney this year. Consider this:
  • I submit for 12 different dates in September and didn't get any of them. I'm a solo hiker so you'd think they could fit me in. No luck.
  • I try the second-chance lotto, but there are no available dates until the end of October. I'm booked then.
  • I was in Lone Pine last weekend and learned that there won't be any walk-up permits for 2019.
  • I was going to drive up to Whitney Portal to show my wife the peak, but the road is closed above Horseshoe Meadows Road.
  • My rental car was parked in Lone Pine, in front of the hostel, when a truck came along in the right lane, dragging a piece of angle iron from the side of his trailer. The angle iron bounced up and sliced the front tire, ripping the wheel cover off, but didn't leave a mark on the fender. That angle iron could have sliced the side of the car open like a church key. Several other cars up the street weren't so lucky.
  • I was going to drive up Whitney Portal Rd, south on Horseshoe Meadows Road, and east on Lubkin Canyon Road to see the west side of the Alabama Hills. Instead, I had to mount the space-saver spare and drive to Tehachapi to get a new tire installed. 130 miles at 55 mph!

God is telling me not to go to Whitney. I got the message.