Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Whitney Portal Closed Through June 30th

The fact that they are cancelling Mt. Whitney permits one week in advance makes me think that they are leaving open the possibility of re-opening the trail before July 1st. Although that might just be wishful thinking on my part since my Whitney permit is for June 30th.

I have both a June 19 day permit and a July 4th overnight permit. I hope that I get the chance to summit on one of those permits. I am hoping since it was a poor snow year the switch backs might be melted out by mid June thus lowering the SAR need on the chute and they might open the trail sooner than July 1st. Time will tell.

I'm sorry in advance for my ignorance but what exactly does that mean for those of us who have overnight permits for late july?

Reading this makes me think that they are closing the trail indefinitely since it's a "high use trail where rescues and recoveries are common." Initially I had thought they planned to open the trail on June 30th. Should I feel confident that my July 24 permits will work out?

Yeah, you should be fine. The trail isn't closed indefinitely, it's just closed in May and June since that's when most of the rescues and recoveries occur. The vast majority of them are caused by inexperienced people who get lost or injured while travelling on snow (glissading down the chute seems to be a common theme in many of the accidents), which becomes a non-issue once the snow melts out at the end of June.