Wow, that hike does seem appealing. Not sure why anyone would do the JMT given this option
(joking)
Fresno does have commercial air service, although I'm not sure of the cost vs flying into SFO, OAK, SJC plus car rental. Oakland likely has the cheapest flights, and if you are driving to Fresno the three airports are basically the same driving distance, although San Jose will get you out of town the fastest and easiest way. You will likely need to rent a car at Fresno as well, but conceivably there is an alternative.
Interested to see what you finally decide.
John
Thanks John for the info about the airports - I hadn't looked that deeply into that part yet, but maybe Oakland is the best idea - I would imagine the car rental would be cheaper out of a bigger center as well, so we don't mind driving a bit to Fresno, then we could stay overnight there and take care of a couple things before driving to Road's End and starting the hike.
With respect to the wedding process itself, my new crazy idea, if we are successful in getting the permit to do the loop from Road's End, would be to pick up the marriage license in Fresno County and then hike in with it up to Mt. Whitney. I have read that there is fairly reliable cell coverage on top of Mt. Whitney via Verizon, so we could pick up a Verizon SIM card in Fresno as well and then see if a kind and adventurous soul who happens to be up at the top at the same time would be willing to get "ordained" online (via theamm.org - it takes literally 2 minutes!) and then witness our vows and sign the license (we will also offer a generous fee, of course).
I agree with Steve that it would be just too difficult to try to coordinate with someone coming in from the east side, since I'm not sure about our exact hiking pace and how long it would take us to get to Mt. Whitney from Road's End.
But, if we get rejected for the SEKI permit we will go back to the drawing board and revisit the acclimation hikes + walk-in permit idea. Will definitely post back here to update when we figure it out
