Mt Whitney Webcam
Mt Williamson Webcam
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 200 guests, and 15 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Another permit question
#30949 04/15/13 10:02 AM
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 26
M
OP Offline
M
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 26
One of my friends has five permits for a Whitney day-hike in July, but she doesn't want to go anymore. She did not designate an alternate leader. I'd like to buy the permits from her, but Recreation.gov says it's too late to designate an alternate leader. Is there any alternative solution?

Re: Another permit question
Mescalito345 #30953 04/15/13 12:05 PM
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 8,507
Likes: 103
S
Offline
S
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 8,507
Likes: 103
Inyo N.F. has to prevent adding alternate leaders to prevent scalpers from winning lottery permits, and then selling them. That situation occurred with Half Dome permits.

All your friend can do is go to Recreation.gov and release her permits, and the system will then make the permits available online at a random time in the next 24 hours. Here's what I'd do as a first try: She should release them at a time when online activity is likely to be low (on message boards it is Fridays -- must be people getting ready for the weekend.) I'd suggest late Thursday night. Then you should coordinate with her, and set up a link/bookmark to the recreation.gov site for the date of her permits (here's July 1), and check as often as possible for those permits, say every 30 minutes starting in the morning. I would think your chances of accessing them are good.

If that doesn't work, I would still plan on doing the hike and make all the arrangements. Keep checking recreation.gov for the date you want, (especially in the two weeks before) and watch for other permits to come available. It is likely that a few good people will sign on and release a few slots in the days before the hike.

If that doesn't work: Go for the walk-in unused permits. If you check the 2012 Unused Whitney Permits info, you can see how permits went unused -- even after all the walk-in people were given permits. If you go in the day before the day hike, or the day-of for an overnight hike, you are likely to get the permits you want. As other groups pick up their reserved permits, they often drop a slot or two, and those become available right away. (I'd suggest being there at 8:30 for those, and check back every hour.) At 2 PM the day before (for day hikes), and at 11 AM the current day for overnighters, the no-shows are declared, and that block of permits comes available.

There are always group size reductions and always no-shows, so you CAN get permits. You just have to work at it.

Re: Another permit question
Steve C #30957 04/15/13 07:57 PM
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 26
M
OP Offline
M
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 26
Steve: thanks for the information. I called Recreation.gov today, and it seems like there is now another possibility. The group leader can call the permit office a few days before the hike date, and tell them that someone else in their group is going to pick up the permit.

I asked them if the group leader could do that right now, but the answer was no. It has something to do with scalpers buying up permits, and then selling them for a higher price.


Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.4
(Release build 20200307)
Responsive Width:

PHP: 7.4.33 Page Time: 0.021s Queries: 20 (0.017s) Memory: 0.5796 MB (Peak: 0.6319 MB) Data Comp: Off Server Time: 2024-03-29 10:43:59 UTC
Valid HTML 5 and Valid CSS