Thanks for the reply. That's what I thought, and so it would seem that the statement above, "you need to enter the lottery if you are entering the Whitney Zone during quota season," needs to have "if you're using the Main Whitney Trail" added to be correct.
I asked about Cottonwood Pass because, while there's no quota for it before 6/25 but one still needs a permit to enter that way, recreation.gov does not let one get a permit for it before 6/25; starting on 6/25 all dates just say "W" (walk-up). Neither the page for the Pass on the Forest Service website nor the one on recreation.gov say anything about permits for the Pass not being available. I know the Pass was closed during fire season last year, and there's still a zone that's off limits (
https://www.nps.gov/maps/full.html?mapId=1a3dabe6-06e2-4766-ac55-a7d41b37ea14), but the Pass and the PCT going north from there are outside that zone, so I don't know why I can't get a permit.
Rico, the lottery is ONLY for people using the Mt Whitney Main Trail, starting at Whitney Portal.
Cottonwood Pass and Cottonwood Lakes (and even Kearsarge Pass from Onion Valley) are all on a quota system, where 60% of the permits become available at 7 AM 6 months before the hike start date. The remaining 40% become available 2 weeks before the start date (not sure if it is 7 AM, or at a random time that morning). The 40% are supposed to be "walk-in" availability, which before COVID was the case -- they became available only to walk-in requests at 11 AM the day before the start.
Lately, those permits coming available at 7 AM are gone in seconds, due to their high demand. They are all handled via Recreation.gov.
