> now they make you go on some website and make a huge deal out of the whole thing, what a pain.....

Welcome to the world of computerized automation. I am sure this will be allowing Inyo to hire fewer people. ...Their budget has been cut year after year.

> so I called them and they said that MR permits are first come first serve, walk up do it yourself permits...

No, they are NOT 'FCFS'. Only 4 of them are. The other six are reservable on-line through www.recreation.gov. I just went to the site and checked. Looks like most of June is wide open, but quite a few days are full in July. Get online and check it out:

http://www.recreation.gov
Where: Mt Whitney
Interested in: Permits & Wilderness
Click Search

Click Inyo National Forest - Wilderness Permits

enter these values:
Looking for: Overnight Visiting Mt Whitney
Trail: North Fork Lone Pine Creek JM34
Range (not Specific)
Start Date: Sun Jul 1 2012
End Date: Sat Jul 14 2012
Group Size: 2 (your choice)
Click Search

The screen allows you to scroll left and right through two weeks of dates at a time, and it shows you which days are available (the "A" with a number below) and which have a full quota ("R" displays).

Click on an "A" day, and you can then book the permit.

Good luck! If you can't navigate through the above steps, maybe you can pretend you don't have access to a computer, and ask them to do it over the phone.