I won 6 permits for Friday June 26, wahoo!

My 9th choice made it.

Late August here.

i have 3 for may 9th, but i would prefer to go later in the season if anyone is looking to trade.

May 9? Mercy! I would decline those, because you can pick up an unused permit any time in May, except maybe Memorial Day weekend. Check out the Unused Whitney Permits 2014. You can see that anyone can pick up walk-ins well into June.

What Steve said. We camped at Trail Camp in mid-May too many years ago and it was us and a couple other groups. We saw two other groups on our summit day.

Winter skills and tools will be required this early. The year I went was after a very mild winter and warm spring.

yeah i requested for august but ended up with may i definitely do not have the gear for a may trip

idonahue, Did you request a May date? I received a notice that I was successful in the lottery for May 15. Only problem is that I did not request a date in May, all my dates were in August. I am wondering if there was some glitch with the website.

Do you think I'll need crampons and ice axe my June 26th date?

I hiked the Mt. Whitney main trail 8/28/2010 and the mountaineer's route 8/24/2013. This year was the first time I entered the lottery, requesting 5 permits. I was unsucessful. I just picked up 2 permits for 8/30/2015 from cancellations on the recreation.gov website. I still need to pick up 3 additional permits.

What is the process for adding the 3 additional permits? Can I monitor the recreation.gov website and book 3 more permits for the same day? I would then have two trips planned for the same day under my name.

I believe that IF permits are available for the same day, that you can add permits onto your existing trip. But you have to watch the site and hope slots come available. To make sure, though, you can telephone the Wilderness Permits number 760-873-2483, and talk to the people there. They are the ones who know the full story.

Check often on May 1 as all the slots won in the lottery that were not paid for will come available (at random times through the day). If you are not successful, a few people will cancel their slots in the week or two before the date.

And finally, you are practically guaranteed that you can add people to your permit when you go in and pick up the actual permits. There are always cancellations and no-shows, and they become available immediately during the pickup time at the Visitor Center.

FYI, I've been keeping an eye on the permits and grabbed some in early August (my lottery entry won me some late August permits).

A day later, a day earlier permit opened up, but it wouldn't let me get it since I had the next day already (it would have been closer to the weekend, but I didn't want to chance cancelling the permits I had). A question to the site support confirmed that I'd have to cancel and eat the non-refundable fee if I wanted to get another permit on an adjacent date.

So it might not allow you to reserve it if you have an adjacent or same day permit already reserved.

You might need to get one of your other group members to actually buy the additional permits.

You could try to call 1-877-444-6777 when the permits are available on the website to get a human to get the additional permits added manually to your reservation, but that could chance losing the permits to someone else.




BTW, would people think early August would be better than Late August? My experience with the Sierra Nevadas is that afternoon thunderstorms tend to be more likely in late summer (not to mention a hail storm in mid-September in the Yosemite High Country that I once found myself stuck in ).

My lottery entry early picks were early August, but the late August was what I won. I also snagged a reserved campsite for my late August dates, so not sure if I'm going to go for that or shift to the earlier date yet and hope one of the walk-in sites is available.

My experience is that there are plenty of walk-in campsites although I've never been there on a week end. Very convenient too: close to parking, bear lockers, garbage, restroom, Portal Store, and trail head.

I had picked up 2 of 5 permits needed on the web site. Later an additional one became availble. I clicked the Update Resevation link on my permit updating the number from 2 to 3 and paying an additional $15 permit fee. I still need 2 more permits. Friday May 1st looks like the best bet to get the permits needed.

Way to go. Here's hoping you pick up the 2 more. May 1 is the day winning permits that are not paid for get returned back to the system. They will show up at random times throughout the day. I need to check in on Friday to see how many show up.

For others:

Links to Recreation.gov:     DAY USE, Mt. Whitney Zone     Mt. Whitney Trail Overnight Permit

Well it took most of the day, but I reserved the last 2 permits of the 5 I needed for 8/30/15.

Thanks to the all the people on this forum. I have been reading this forum since 2010 when I was preparing for my first Mt. Whitney hike on the main trail. In 2013 this forum again was a great help when I prepared for my hike on the Mountaineer's route.

For this hike on the main trail I invited my two brothers and 2 nephews to join me on the main trail hike. This will be the first time they will hike Mt. Whitney. I have been recommending this forum to them for their preparation.

Yay! I just got 4 that I wanted to Aug 23 as well. There seems to be quite a few overnight available right now, in various months.

It is amazing what is now available! All those people that entered the lottery and won slots, and now have already forgotten about Whitney.

Yeah, I saw a few nice spots last night and even grabbed a better early august spot, but this morning there's permits available for a good deal of dates in July/August.

Guess I shouldn't have worried too much about the lottery.

Yesterday the available slots just slowly trickled in. Even late last night there were few slots available for weekend day hikes. This morning there must be availability for over 90% of the days available, including weekends.

quite a good selection of permits were available, even for Thu and Fri dates. Is this typical that so many open up after May 1?

No, I don't think it is typical. But then I haven't paid that much attention to what was available before.

There are still quite a few day hike slots available, but the overnights are down to a sprinkling of singles. In a week or two, there won't be anything left. Only a few odd slots may show up after that -- slots released by people who have paid for permits and someone in their group cancels. These usually show up just a few days before the hike date.