Wow! What I once thought was a quite hospitable allowance for JMT hikers has been terminated. In all past years, hikers could come out of the wilderness and go off the trail for a 24-hour stay overnight to clean up and get a new supply of food. This is no longer the case.
Inyo rules are here:
Wilderness Permits & Reservations Open the "What Permit Do I Need" section, find this:
Continuous Wilderness Travel
Continuous wilderness travel is an unbroken path on system trails or within wilderness.
> Leaving the trail system for resupply or taking time off terminates a permit.
> Exiting the wilderness to reenter at a different location terminates a permit.
> Leaving the trail and using an alternative method of travel, like a shuttle bus or a vehicle terminates the permit.
> In prior years an exception to exit the wilderness briefly for resupply was allowed in Inyo National Forest, this exception is no longer allowed.
If you have a break in continuous travel a new permit would be required from the agency where the next section of your trip begins.
Open the "John Muir Trail" section to read this:
> If you have a break in continuous travel a new permit would be required from the agency where the next section of your trip begins.
> If your trip begins on Inyo National Forest and you will finish the trip at Mt. Whitney, the Trail Crest Exit quota will apply.
Interesting rules for PCT hikers: No overnight at Guitar Lake to take a side-trip to Mt Whitney--
> Not allowed to camp off of the PCT trail corridor.
> The summit of Mt Whitney can be side hiked as a day hike, however you must camp on the west side of the PCT at Crabtree. No camping east of the PCT, at Guitar Lake or on the mountain. PCT permit does not allow use of the Mt Whitney trail.
If you take that literally, if "at Crabtree" refers to the Crabtree R.S., it is already a mile east of the PCT. And Crabtree Meadow is a swampy meadow, also east of the PCT. I wonder if SeKi or the PCTA will explain these rules any better?
