Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion early 3am start

I am planning on starting my hike on Mt Whitney Trail around 3am on Tuesday July 19. Considering there are 100 day use permits issued every day I am hoping I will have a few other hikers starting at that time.

Yes, you'll have some company on the trail. Enjoy the alpenglow, stay safe and have a fun hike!

Thank you for replying, Gina. Have a great rest of the day :-)

The trail is not exactly crowded at 3AM. You will likely see headlamps ahead and behind. You may encounter stragglers coming down or fast hikers coming up from behind. July 19 is full moon. You will have moonlight until the moon drops below the ridgeline. Your permit allows you to start at midnight. One year we saw about a dozen hikers lined up at the trailhead waiting for 12 o'clock. After our first hike, my wife said she would have no problems hiking the trail at night by herself. Enjoy!

Thank you, Richard :-)

Actually, your permit allows you to enter the Wilderness at midnight. There were probably another dozen or more hikers a mile or so ahead of your group.

Actually, it does not. I had a conversion at the visitor's center about this very matter a few years ago. Their position is that your day hike permit is for the main Mt Whitney Trail. The trail starts at the Portal. Therefore, you cannot leave the Portal until midnight.

There is a popular misconception that you are OK if you don't pass the Whitney Zone sign until midnight. That is not correct. Hikers are confused because they can hike to Lone Pine Lake anytime. If you were at Lone Pine Lake at midnight with a day hike permit, you are expected to hike back to the Portal and begin your Mt. Whitney hike there.

I know all this sounds crazy, but the desk personnel assured me that this is what the regulations required.

As a practical matter, there are no rangers staking out the trail head looking for early starting scofflaws.

?????
Do you have any reference to a document confirming this?

I do not question your statement that one of the rangers told you this. Is it possible that this ranger has been mistaken?

BTW, have you had this conversation on April 1st?

A lot of different rangers will give you a lot of different interpretations of a lot of different regulations policies and things that they just do. The problem with different interpretations of rules is that sometimes there isn't really a rule being interpreted. Many Inyo rangers for example will tell you that a regulation requires using a wag bag and packing out your waste. There is no such regulation. Or that you must have a "Visiting Whitney" permit to climb Whitney from the west. Also not so. In this case, it would be interesting to know exactly what rule authorizes requiring a wilderness permit on Forest land outside the wilderness. Bet they can't cite one. I would be happy to learn that they can: it would another bit of permit info that could be useful.

BTW, the misinformation about the Whitney Zone sign really is misinformation: that sign is well within the Wilderness, and since what you are supposed to be carrying is a Wilderness permit, that kicks in at the Wilderness boundary just beyond the North Fork crossing.

I was standing in line to get a permit in August a few years back. The party in front of me asked about an early start and was told they could begin at midnight. I chimed in that it would take an hour or two, depending on your speed, to reach the Whitney Zone sign. So, why not start at 10PM or 11PM. Everybody behind the counter jumped down my throat. They were firm that it was not within regulations.

Again, there are no rangers at the trail head at midnight. We started at 10PM several times because we are slow and wanted to be back well before sunset.

Regarding starting up the MMWT trail before midnight on a day hike permit:
I thought this had been definitively answered before, but searching for it, I couldn't find anything.
So I emailed our contact in the Wilderness Permit office for Inyo National Forest, and this is the response.

I’ve never seen the point of starting obscenely early with little or no sleep. I’ve only started before 5:00 AM once: I started at 1:15 AM because I was doing a double, and I started up for the second time that day at 10:31 AM.

I'm on the same page. No one is going to be there to ticket you, and the WZ boundary is 2+ miles in. You aren't adding to obscene trail traffic at midnight, and non-permitted dayhikers are permitted up to LP Lake anyways. I don't think any nocturnal ranger would knock you for starting around 10-11p.