Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion 2016: Whitney Portal parking & Road Construction: Completed

I'm totally confused about the situation and hope that maybe some kind person can help me out...

I'm traveling with a group of 23+ people. For our group we have obtained a total of 3 hiking permits. Does this mean we will only get 3 parking permits? If so that is going to pose some difficulty for us. Some of us are staying at at hotel in Lone Pine, and some are camping. I am concerned, how can we get all our people to the Whitney trailhead at 3am? We start our hike on a Monday morning, so there may be fewer people since it's not the weekend, but from what I understand the problem is not too many people as there are plenty of empty parking spaces. The problem is that they have really clamped down on the parking permits, only giving out a single parking permit for each hiking permit. Is there some way to obtain additional parking permits for our group? Or, do we just need to plan on using a shuttle service? Do these shuttles run at 3am? If we use a shuttle, how do we get our guys back to the hotel after the hike, since we don't know the time when they will finish the hike?

Thanks to anybody who can provide some answers!