I am surprised how booked up June is, and May weekends for that matter. When I went about 8 years ago on a late June weekend, there was probably no more than about 15 people who made it to the summit all day, maybe another 10 on other parts of the trail, who didn't make the summit. Well below the permit quota. It was a heavy spring snowfall that year, looks like this year might be similar.
Louie, lots of people sign up for whatever dates they can get, and then watch the conditions. In a heavy snow year, when the switchbacks open late, they just don't go on their permit date. Before last year, Inyo made those no-shows' permits available at 2 pm the day before the day-hikes, 10 AM the date of the hike for overnighters. Last year, they killed the walk-in process to pick up no-shows. But they didn't have any way to release the no-shows online. We can only hope they can get it together this year. It is a matter of setting up the software.
They used to have the attitude that they wanted to fill the daily quota as much as possible. I get the feeling that isn't a priority anymore.
