Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion walk in permit pick up location

I'm going to attempt to get a walk in permit entering cottonwood lakes and exiting whitney portal for a five day hike. Do I have to go to Lone Pine to pick up the permit, or can I pick it up anywhere in Inyo, such as Lee Vining? How critical is it to be there at 11am sharp? I'll be going in peak late July/ early Aug time. I'm trying to figure out what days would increase my odds of securing both the entry and exit I want. Pick up permit on Wed for a Thurs entry, Sunday summit, Monday exit... or pick up permit on on Thurs for a Friday entry, Monday summit, Tuesday exit...or any combination thereof. Or am I thinking too hard and it doesn't really matter?

Yes, you need to pick up the permits in Lone Pine. Should not have any trouble securing a permit for entry at Cottonwood Lakes as 24 are available for walk in each day. But midweek is always better. Securing a Trail Crest permit will be a little tougher as only 10 are available daily for walk in. Can always check at Reservations.gov for any cancellations. I am hiking from Cottonwood Lakes to Mt Whitney and return to Cottonwood Lakes trailhead in early Aug. Don't like the crowds on the main Mt Whitney trail. Also get to summit Mt Langley and hike to Sky Blue Lake on the return trip. Good luck.

When looking at permit options for my own hike this summer, it appeared that the best way to get a walk-in exit permit was to have the longest possible hike duration - the exit pass is very rare for a walk-in pass in that it is being issued for many days in advance, but can only be issued in conjunction with a current (or next?) day entry permit. So in theory you could be first in line on 30th July but find that the exit permits for 4th August were all issued a few days earlier to people on longer hikes.

When I collected my permit last year the rangers were very clear with me that exit permit dates had some flexibility; if you came out +/- a day it didn't matter at all. I was upfront that I would be exiting a day earlier than my permit and they really didn't care.

NYHiker. How many days did you take for the round trip back to Cottonwood Lakes? Is the route through Sky Blue Lake difficult to navigate?

Six days total as follows camping at Soldier Lake over New Army Pass, Guitar Lake, summit Mt Whitney and camp at Crabtree Meadow, Soldier Lake, half day hike to Sky Blue Lake and camp at High Lake then back to trailhead. Total of about 65 - 70 miles via the Pacific Crest & John Muir trails (no cross country). Hiking to Sky Blue Lake is not difficult as I follow Rock Creek to the base of the wall where the creek ends and then over the wall to Sky Blue Lake. There are other ways to go where there is not as much elevation gain/loss via the north end of Soldier Lake. Hope that helps. If you have added questions by all means don't hesitate to ask.

NYHiker, I don't know if you have considered this, but with all your experience, I think you could pull it off:

Instead of retracing the PCT back to Soldier Lk, if you carried your pack to Trail Crest, you could then drop off from Discovery Pinnacle heading x-country to the southeast, over Crabtree Pass, directly to Sky Blue Lake. You could then camp overnight there.

I know people have covered that territory -- the slope off Discovery Pinnacle is quite a sandy talus slope, so descending would be no trouble.

I would sure like to do that route sometime.

Just for future reference, all: Whitney Portal exit permits can be picked up at any Inyo National Park ranger station. I successfully picked up a walk in permit for entering Cottonwood Lakes, exiting Whitney Portal from the Lee Vining Ranger Station at 11am the day before we hiked out.

The permits that you need to pick up from Lone Pine station only are the day and overnight permits where you are entering and exiting Whitney Portal.

Danielle, thanks for that! It is good to know.

Technically it is the "Trail Crest Exit" permit. ...only what do you mean by the day before you "hiked out?" Makes sense if you picked up your Cottonwood entry and Trail Crest Exit permits the day before you started your hike.

Also, was this entire trip based on getting walk-in permits, as you wrote above? It sounds like it has all worked out for you.

Steve,

Sorry, yes, I do mean we picked up the permit the day before we started our hike from Cottonwood Lakes.

We had originally tried for the lottery, didn't get it. I checked the website often for cancellations, but still didn't find any for the days we were available. So, we picked a date, and decided to try for a walk in permit. Our plan was, if we weren't able to get a Whitney permit, we would do some other backpacking trip in the area anyway.

A few days before we left there were about 8 cancellations for the exit date we wanted, but no Cottonwood Lakes entry permits available, so I still wasn't able to reserve online in advanced, but it seemed pretty promising we would get what we wanted with a walk-in. We showed up at 11am sharp, were second in line, and got the permits we wanted without a problem.

The trip was great, but we ran into some horrible weather on our summit day, unfortunately. We made it over the Trail Crest to get back to our car, but skipped the summit (people were talking about their hair standing on end, so I'll pass on that).