How difficult is it to get a Cottonwood to Whitney round trip walk-up pass? Not exiting Whitney Portal. Is there a quota?

Walk-ups should be relatively easy to get. Right now, most dates are reserved for July and August, but that is 36 slots, and 24 more are held back for walk-in requests.

If you are at any Inyo N.F. ranger station (there are 4) at 11 AM the day before, you are sure to get a slot. (Call the wilderness permit office to make sure of that 11AM day-before time. 760-873-2483)

Perfect thank you!

Steve, Kurt Wedberg posted on the FB group that RecDotGov website is not able to release No-Show reservations for Walk-ins. If someone doesn't show, and doesn't cancel, that quota spot goes unfilled. Cancellations are handled online, so that means Walk-In options are going to be screwed up until this gets fixed. Its not clear what the problem is, but since software is your field, you might have some insight on what's going on.

And since there's no refund for cancellations, people are not motivated to go back online to cancel them. But that's the solution they're proposing for now, people need to cancel if they've not going to use their permit. Its now become a duty to cancel your reservation, not just a nice thing to do.

That policy only applies to the main Whitney trail, but the OP was asking about Cottonwood to Whitney from the back.

That said, based on the comment about the reservation system I do wonder if walk-in permits for all trailheads will *only* come from reserved pool of walk-ins and not augmented by no-shows.

Hopefully they fix it before the quota season begins.

editing my original post here:
Inyo is trying to incentivize the early check-in with the Will Call method, so people will get their exact group size and drop a few slots a few days before the hike start date.

There is no incentive to cancel a complete reservation, so those will still wind up as no-shows. But word is that the no-shows WILL become available ONLINE at random times after the permit pickup deadline has passed.

Please read and comment regarding this big change in the process in the other thread:
No Walk-Up Permits for 2019