Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Unused Permits

I'm writing this for hikers looking to climb Whitney after the main lottery is completed and they don't have a permit.

My wife and I decided to climb Whitney in late April of 2014. We summited over Labor Day weekend. We knew that we were taking our chances trying to get an overnight permit, but did a ton of research on improving our chances. This board was invaluable to our research efforts.

I was directed to this board when I typed into my browser “Unused Whitney Permits.” This led me to the Whitney Zone and a recap year by year of the unused permits. The information starts being tracked in 2007 and is currently tracked through August 2014. It tracks unused permits by date and how many went unclaimed.

We were looking for a weekend in either August or early September. I took all of the information and dropped it into a spreadsheet to see if any weekends in that time frame stood out as being potentially better than others for claiming an unused permit.

For us Labor Day weekend appeared to be the best option. Not only because we had several days to claim a permit and start the hike, but because that weekend without exception had the most unused permits. Perhaps, it was because so many are in “back to school” mode.

Our packs were ready to go. The Thursday before Labor Day weekend came around, I called the Eastern Sierra Interagency Center in Lone Pine at noon, to see if there were any unused permits still available for the next day. They told me to check back around 4:00 PM. I did check back at 4:00 and they told me there were some available and my best shot at claiming them would be to be at the center at 8:00 AM to claim them.

We live in San Diego, so the drive to Lone Pine is just over 4 hours. We hit the road at 5:00 PM and had to overnight in Ridgecrest, which is an hour south of Lone Pine. We had to do this because all of the hotel rooms in Lone Pine were full. Actually, the place we stayed, Springhill Suites, was very nice and comfortable.

We were at the center before 8:00. By 8:00 there were probably 20 people gathered waiting for the ranger to tell us what to do next. Promptly at 8:00 the doors opened and the ranger asked that those looking to get an unused permit for their group select a blind lottery number. There were 11 numbers drawn. My number was 8. I was not feeling too confident about our chances.

We got our turn at the counter in about 10 minutes and we were successful getting the overnight permit. The day hikes are more popular than overnights and is reflected in the nearly 2:1 ratio of available permits. We were on the trail by 10:00AM Saturday and summited the next day.

So I understand correctly - you were in line by 8am on the Friday, to pick up a permit for an overnight trip, that had a start date of Saturday. Is that right? Thanks!

Spreadsheet no less! Glad the numbers helped someone.

You should call the wilderness permit office and thank them for passing the unused permit numbers to this website. They really do help people, and letting them know will always help.

I misstated that we started hiking on Saturday. In line on Friday and started hiking Friday morning. I assume you could start on Saturday as no one is keeping track of how many days you're in or out of the Whitney Zone. The permit had Friday's date. Hope this helps.