Joe (and everyone else wringing their hands about a cc hit, notification or rejection), even though I have to travel 2000 miles to play on Whitney, and even though I've only hit the lottery once in five years of trying, I've moved pretty strongly into the Steve C mode of thinking regarding permits.
In other words,
NO WORRIES. Here's why:
During the Whitney high-demand season of July, August and September, there are 92 possible days to snag a permit. In 2010, how many of those 92 days would you guess that there were ultimately no permits available for people that wanted them?
The answer is a grand total of 4. Let me say that again -
4. That's 4 days out of 92 that someone might have walked up to the Inter-Agency center in Lone Pine seeking either/or permits - a dayhike permit for the next day or an overnight permit for the same day - and walked away without one. And, predictably, all four of those days were Saturdays (1 in July, 2 in August, 1 in September).
Now, if you break that down into "I
must have an overnight permit", the numbers go up a bit - to 15 out of 92 days. However, if you're willing to take what's available between dayhike and overnight combined, the number is just 4 days that you would have left empty-handed. Another tasty number-crunching factoid: No one was turned away for
either permit on Wednesday last year, except for the one Wednesday in mid-July in the middle of the Badwater Ultra-Marathon - day permits were exhausted, but overnight permits were available. In fact it was the next day, Thursday, that Joe and I went up Whitney on an overnight permit I snagged from calling for cancellations just two days prior - during Badwater!
Another 2010 factoid: there were never two conscutive weekdays during the summer when permits of either type were unavailable, and only rarely 2 consecutive weekend days.
The lesson? Chill about the lottery. Yeah, I know it's nice being certain, and having your permit letter in hand before you make your plans, but history shows that if you simply head to Lone Pine in the summer and (1) have a little bit of flexibility, and (2) try to avoid weekends, you will almost certainly snag that permit to climb Whitney.
So folks, do
not tank all your plans and walk away because you don't get a lottery permit - big mistake! Use a little smarts in organizing your trip and a permit will be there in Lone Pine waiting for you.
If you want to investigate the numbers yourself, the details are
here .
