Friendly heads up that if you're interested in backpacking Mt. Whitney with an organized group in 2018, there's an important deadline looming February 1st.

In November, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park went through a new permitting process restricting the number of groups that can operate on Mt. Whitney, and the number of client service days allocated to each operator.

Here is the list of approved operators:
https://www.nps.gov/seki/getinvolved/guideservices.htm


Here is some additional information - and how we're approaching the deadline...
https://tsxchallenge.com/mt-whitney-important-feb-1st-deadline/

Bottom line is that deciding to join an organized group to summit Mt. Whitney after Feb 1st will be difficult to do, and likely more expensive.