How To Get Permits For Mount Whitney (and tips to increase your odds!)
Looking to snag a highly coveted Mount Whitney Permit? Getting this permit takes a bit of time and effort, but mostly luck, and if you get one, you’ll be rewarded with views atop the highest summit in the continental U.S. Keep reading to learn all about how you can get a Mt. Whitney permit, how to apply for the Mt. Whitney lottery, when you should go, and best of all, tips for increasing your chances of getting the coveted Whitney permit!
So, you want to hike Mount Whitney, huh? Well, that makes you and about 100,000 other people.
Yup, it’s that popular.
And it’s no surprise why. Standing on top of Mt. Whitney means standing on the highest point in the continental U.S., with unbeatable and epic alpine views. While many high points throughout the world require technical mountaineering skills and several days, or even weeks, to summit, Mt. Whitney uniquely offers the chance to hike to the summit on a well-maintained trail that’s accessible to many people. No ropes. No crampons. No mountaineering experience necessary. All the alpine views.
The catch? Well, you can’t just hike Mount Whitney on a whim. You absolutely need a permit to hike Mount Whitney, and because of the growing popularity of the Mount Whitney Trail, these permits can be quite hard to get.
But we’re here to tell you that with a bit of preparation and planning, some luck, and a touch of persistence, you can get those coveted Mt. Whitney Trail permits.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through exactly how to get a Mount Whitney permit (there are two main ways!), give you our experience with the permit system (a heartwarming story of failure and ultimate triumph…), give you some tips on how to increase your chances of getting a Mt. Whitney permit, and finally, if all fails and you just can’t get that permit (*womp womp*), give you some other options to consider.
An important note: Just because the Mt. Whitney Trail is a hike doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be properly prepared! It’s a long hike at high altitude and shouldn’t be taken lightly. We’ll be writing a hiking guide soon, but in the meantime check out Inyo National Forest’s official Mt. Whitney information if you’re planning on hiking the Mt. Whitney Trail.
In this Mount Whitney Permit Guide:
Can You Hike Mount Whitney Without a Permit?
We’ll nip this right in the bud from the start…you can’t hike Mount Whitney without a permit, so don’t even try! There are rangers on the trail who ask for your permit and will give you a hefty fine if you don’t have one. But even still, the permits are in place for a reason! Limiting the number of people on the Mount Whitney Trail helps preserve and protect the environment so it doesn’t get overrun and trampled. We know it’s hard to get the Mount Whitney permit, but we promise you, persistence pays off and if you keep trying, you will get one!
What Types of Mount Whitney Permits Are There?
There are multiple trails that head up Mt. Whitney that each have different permits. However, the only one that doesn’t require mountaineering skills is the Mount Whitney Trail. This is a standard hiking trail that requires no technical gear or skills, and is the trail most people use to summit Mount Whitney. This is the Mount Whitney permit that most people are after and the one we’ll be talking about in this guide.
Although not technical, the Mount Whitney Trail is still no joke. It’s a whopping 22 miles long with 6200 feet of elevation gain…a long and challenging hike for even the most experienced hikers. Because of how long it is, you can either day hike it or backpack it, and each of these options has its own distinct permit.
Day Hike Permits versus overnight permits for Mount Whitney
There are two types of permits for the Mt. Whitney Trail – day Use permits and overnight permits- and you’ll have to specify which you are applying for on your application.
Mount Whitney Day Hike Permit
Day use permits are for those who plan on day hiking the Mt. Whitney trail. They are valid from midnight to midnight on the day that the permit is valid.
Mount Whitney Overnight Hike Permit
Overnight permits are for those who want to backpack the Mt. Whitney trail and spend a night or more camping in the backcountry at various campgrounds along the trail.
Which Mount Whitney Permit Should I Get?
When applying for a Mount Whitney permit, it’s important to choose the right permit for you. These are not interchangeable with each other.
When choosing the type of Mount Whitney permit to apply for, it’s important to know your limitations. The Mt. Whitney Trail hike, while not technical, is a beast. It’s over 6,000 feet of elevation gain and 22 miles roundtrip! The park service estimates that it takes about 12-14 hours to day hike the Mt. Whitney trail. You’ll likely be up before sunrise and back after sunset, meaning a long day that starts and finishes in the dark. You’ll also likely be a bit slower than you’d expect because of the altitude (most hiking is done over 9,000 feet above sea level!). Make sure you’ve trained well enough to know that you will be able to work up to this distance by the time you hike Mt. Whitney.
If you know you hike on the slow side, or haven’t done this distance in a day before and not sure if you actually can, backpacking Mount Whitney may be the way to go. It will break up the trail over two or more days, but, of course, will require you to carry all your gear with you, making the climb a little bit more strenuous.
So, it’s really just about knowing yourself and your abilities and whether you’d rather have a long day on the trail but with little weight, or spend a few days hiking but with heavier packs.
How Hard Is It to Get A Mount Whitney Permit?
We won’t sugarcoat this one. Getting a permit for the Mount Whitney Trail is hard, and the whole process is highly competitive.
From May 1st to November 1st, which is the peak season to climb Mt. Whitney, permits for the Mount Whitney Trail are restricted to 100 day hikers and 60 backpackers per day. Keep in mind, this quota is for the number of people on the trail, not number of permits. One permit covers your whole group, so limiting by people rather than permits makes the chances of landing one even slimmer.
To give you some context, in 2021 there were 25,000 Mount Whitney permit applications for 108,500 people and in 2022 this increased to a whopping 26,767 Mount Whitney permit applications for 115,209 people. We told you it was popular.
With these kinds of bleak statistics, it’s hard to imagine how it’s possible to score a Mount Whitney permit. But we’re here to give you hope! We managed to beat the odds, and if we can do it, so can you! We’re here to show you exactly how we got a Mount Whitney permit, and how you can increase your chances of doing it, too.
How Much Is A Mount Whitney Permit?
If you’re lucky enough to get one, a Mount Whitney permit cost $6, and then $15 per person listed on the permit.
The application into the Mount Whitney lottery also has a fee, but we’ll get into that below…
How to Get A Mount Whitney Permit
Okay, here’s what you’ve really been waiting for. How do I get a Mount Whitney permit?!
Since we did it, the process has become a little bit more streamlined, thankfully. Now, there are two main ways to get a Mount Whitney permit:
A pre-season lottery that occurs from February 1st to March 1st
Through an online reservation system beginning April 1st and goes on for the rest of the quota season
We’ll go over both methods below.
The Mount Whitney Lottery
The pre-season lottery is the primary way to get a Mount Whitney permit. Everyone fills out an application, selecting the type of Mt. Whitney permit they want (day or overnight) and their top ten preferred trip dates. All these applications get jumbled up and selected at random in a lottery that decides your Mount Whitney fate (not to be dramatic or anything…).
When is the Mt. Whitney Lottery
The 2023 Mount Whitney Lottery is being held between February 1st to March 1st. This means that you have within this timeframe to complete and submit your application.
How To Enter the Mt. Whitney Lottery
To apply to the Mount Whitney lottery, you’ll need to make an account on recreation.gov, which is where you fill out and submit your lottery application.
Once you’ve made an account, to find the Mt. Whitney lottery on recreation.gov, enter Inyo National Forest Wilderness Permits in the search bar, or go here. Between the dates of February 1st and March 1st, the Mount Whitney lottery application system becomes live on this website.
During this time, you are allowed to submit one application per group. The good news is that on a single Mt. Whitney lottery application, you can select up to 10 different trip dates, ranking them from highest to lowest priority. On the application, you’ll fill out your 10 choices. For each one, you specify the permit type (overnight or day use – you can do a mix of both on one application), the date you’ll be starting on the trailhead, your exit date, and total number of people in your group. Your final list will look something like this:
You’ll also have to specify a group leader, and up to 3 alternates. This is important because the group leader is the only one who can carry the Mount Whitney permit and present the permit to rangers on the trail.
Before you submit the application, make sure you double check everything! If you do want to change anything after submitting, you can’t modify it but instead have to withdraw your application and then submit a new one with the corrections by paying a new fee, and not getting a refund for the first one.
When you check out, you’ll pay a $6 application processing fee.
After that, all you can do is keep your fingers crossed! It’s out of your hands at this point and up to luck and the Mount Whitney permitting gods.
The results of the Mt. Whitney lottery are sent out on March 15th via email (and you can look at them on your recreation.gov account as well).
What dates should I pick for my Mt. Whitney permit?
Although the quota season is from May through October, Mount Whitney is typically snow-free only from July through September, so if you don’t want to have gear like crampons and an ice axe to get to the summit, stick to these months. The weather varies every year, though, and sometimes the snow may melt off more quickly or arrive later in the year. It really depends on the year, but picking a date outside of the July through September would be a gamble. Then again, it could help increase your chances of getting a Mount Whitney Permit. Speaking of which…let’s get to that now!
What are the odds of winning the Mount Whitney Lottery?
Well, let’s look at the numbers, shall we? It’s going to be depressing, but it will help you be more realistic about your odds of getting a Mount Whitney permit.
In 2019, there were roughly 16,000 applications for over 84,000 people. Only 34% of applications for Mount Whitney permits were successful in the Mount Whitney lottery. Kind of disheartening, huh? About 3,100 of these got their first choice, and the remaining 2,500 or so got an alternate date listed on their application.
Since then, the Mount Whitney lottery has gotten more and more popular.
In 2022, there was a record number of Mount Whitney lottery applications: 26,767 applications for 115,209 people! Yikes!
Only 29% of the applications for Mount Whitney permits were successful (11% for overnight trips and 18% for day hikes).
How can I increase my chances of winning the Mount Whitney lottery?
Given these grim odds, you might be wondering if there’s a way to beat the system. Well, not really…it really is mostly luck, and you’re at the mercy of that random number generator of the lottery system. But we want to share with you some Mount Whitney lottery tips that might give you a slightly better shot. And with odds like we shared above, any little bit can help, right?
Start by checking out this awesome page put together by the USDA. These show statistics from the 2019 lottery, but generally, besides having way more applicants, the patterns don’t really change.
This data gives a great overview of the Mount Whitney lottery by listing both the number of applications and the total number of people across all applications that applied on each day of the quota season for both day use and overnight Mount Whitney permits. Here, you can gather trends for which days tend to have the most or least applications, which in turn, are the days you’ll have better odds at being successful in getting a Mount Whitney permit.
Here are some general Mount Whitney lottery tips:
Weekends vs. weekdays: Requests for Friday and Saturdays for overnight Mount Whitney permits and for Saturday for day use Mount Whitney permits are the highest. To increase your odds for a Mount Whitney permit, apply for mid-week permits.
Generally, the first weekend in August is the most requested date year after year. In 2022, there were 55,140 applications with only a 1% success rate.
Months: Dates in July and August have many more Mount Whitney lottery applicants than earlier and later months. Often, permit requests wane in late August and after as the summer ends, so applying for later season Mount Whitney permits may increase your odds. Just be sure you don’t request a date too late so that you’ll risk snow and/or ice on the trail.
To give you an idea of how crazy the odds of winning the Mount Whitney lottery in peak months is, here is some perspective. In 2019, the most popular date was August 3rd. 2,149 applications for 11, 140 people were submitted for an overnight permit, and just 13 applications won for that date. 1,710 applications for 9,057 people were submitted for a day use permit, and just 20 groups won.
It’s tough out there!
Day vs. overnight permits: If you think you can do it, apply for day use Mount Whitney permits instead of overnight permits. Or, at the very least, sprinkle some day use permits into your application, even if they are lower priority alternates. 37% of applications were for day use in 2022 vs. 63% requesting overnight trips, and the success rate for day trips was a bit better (18% of day use requests were successful vs. 11% for overnight requests).
Go with a smaller group: They’ll be more likely to squeeze a smaller group into a date if your number comes up in the Mount Whitney lottery.
Be flexible: I know this can be hard, and not even possible for some people who only have a strict window. But, being flexible and having a number of options open to you so that you can spread possible dates out across those that give you the highest chances of winning will stack the odds in your favor.
Winning the Mount Whitney Lottery
Congrats! Consider yourself lucky, pop open some champagne, breathe a sigh of relief, and celebrate! And maybe consider buying yourself an actual lottery ticket with this much luck on your side…
Then, make sure you accept your Mount Whitney permit! You have until April 21st at 9pm PST to go into your recreation.gov account, accept the permit you won, and pay your permit fees. You’ll be charged $15 per person on the permit, and $6 for the permit itself. If you don’t do this by April 21st, your permit will be forfeited. Before you accept, remember that these permits are non-refundable and cannot be sold or transferred to someone else.
Also keep in mind that you can’t change several factors on the Mount Whitney permit that was awarded to you… you can’t change the start date of your hike, the permit type, or the leader names, nor can you increase the size of your group. The only way you can make any changes to these parameters is if you withdraw your current permit and reapply for a different one (there are no refunds and you’ll have to pay the fees all over again…plus the ods of getting another one are small). So, you need a bit of luck with the weather…if the weather is too bad to hike on your permit day, there’s not much you can do about it, unfortunately. The downsides of having to plan so far in advance…
If you need to later on, though, you can reduce your group size, and, if you have an overnight permit, you can change the camp location and the exit date.
A friendly reminder: If you know you can’t accept a reservation that you’ve won, or maybe later on down the road something comes up and you know you won’t be able to make the hike, OR some people in your group can no longer go, go into your recreation.gov account and cancel your reservation or reduce your group size! This sends those spots back into the system for other eager people who want that space! You’ll make someone’s day. They’ll be able to grab them as we’ll explain below shortly.
What if I didn’t get a permit with the Mt. Whitney Lottery?
We can speak from experience here…this is what a failed lottery application email looks like (so sad).
Not to be a Debbie downer or anything, but chances are you won’t win the lottery.
What to do now? Well, you can shed a tear or two, wallow a bit, but then pick yourself back up and start focusing on your other option, the post-lottery reservation system, which we’ll talk about now.
Getting a Mount Whitney permit using the reservation system
It’s possible that some dates didn’t get filled by the Mount Whitney lottery (likely spring or early fall dates). On April 22nd, these unfilled dates will enter into the reservation system on recreation.gov at 7am PCT on a first come first served basis.
If you didn’t try for the Mount Whitney lottery, or you didn’t win it, this is your last option to get a Mount Whitney permit.
It’s likely, though, that what’s available won’t be the most ideal dates for a Mount Whitney permit.
In 2022, for day hikes of Mount Whitney, all dates between May 20th to October 10th were filled by the pre-season lottery, so 92% of the quota season.
For overnight trips, all dates between May 1st and October 20th were completely filled by the lottery…99% of the quota season!
Basically this means that once the Mount Whitney reservation system began, only early spring and late fall dates were available, but you never know for any given year what it will look like!
How to Get a Mount Whitney Permit on recreation.gov
On the 22nd, log into recreation.gov and open the calendar where you see which dates are available (boxes with As) and the number of spaces available on each date for each permit type (day use vs. overnight).
For us, in the year we were going for a Mt. Whitney permit, this date just happened to be Easter Sunday. And even then, all the available sites were gone in the blink of an eye. As soon as reservations opened, I clicked on the date I was interested in, only to find that the date was no longer available. And just like that, all the dates were gone, except those in late October, and we didn’t want to risk going that late.
Our hopes for a Mount Whitney permit were dashed once again.
But, there was still hope.
That’s because this reservation system is now open for the entire rest of the season. As people cancel their Mount Whitney permits or reduce their group size, these spaces go back into reservation system within 24 hours at random times.
So the key here to getting a Mount Whitney permit? Be persistent! Check the reservation calendar every day if you have to to see what new spots have opened up. This is how we got our Mount Whitney permit!
In fact, you can snag a permit this way up to the very day of your hike! So don’t lose hope until the very end.
Getting a Mount Whitney Permit in this way will cost the same as the lottery (minus the lottery application fee), so $6 for the permit and $15 per person.
Picking Up Your Mount Whitney Permit
No matter how you got your Mount Whitney permit, there’s still some important things you have to do before your hike!
Keep in mind that your confirmation email of your successful permit application is not the permit! There are two ways to get your permit:
Check in at the Eastern Sierra Visitor Center in Lone Pine
Print out your permit from your recreation.gov out
The group leader needs to complete one of these action before noon one day before your hike if you’re day hiking, or by 10:30 am the day of your trip if backpacking. If you don’t do it by these deadlines, you’ll be counted as a no show and lose the Mount Whitney permit you worked so hard to get!
If you choose not to check in in-person, we still highly recommend stopping at the visitor center the day before or morning or your hike. The rangers there can answer any questions, you can rent a bear can (required on the Mount Whitney trail when backpacking!), get maps, and also get free waste disposal bags (the good ol’ WAG bag!).
The last thing to remember is to bring your permit with you on the trail! Have it printed out and signed (your reservation email won’t count…it has to be the permit). Only one of the trip leaders can carry and show it to the park rangers along the trail.
What If I Can't Get A Mount Whitney Permit?
If all else fails and you just couldn’t get a Mount Whitney permit, try again next year! But in the meantime, there are definitely other options nearby.
If you’re absolutely dead set on hiking to the summit of Mount Whitney, there are other, more challenging, but still non-technical routes. Consider Cottonwood Pass, which is longer and a point to point.
Our personal back up plan was Mount Langley. The views from here look just as stunning, but are overshadowed by its more famous neighbor.
Really, the entire Sierra range is an epic alpine playground! We spent a week here doing a lot of great hikes, and we hope to write some articles soon to give you more ideas.
What To Do After Your Mount Whitney Hike
Looking for more things to do in California? Check out our guides below to help you plan an epic California road trip!
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Getting a Mount Whitney Permit is hard, and involves some persistence and a bunch of luck. But it’s worth the effort to be able to stand on top of the world! (or on top of the U.S., anyway…). Let us know if you have any other questions about how to get the Mount Whitney permit, and we wish you the best of luck!