At the beginning of February, I entered the lottery to climb Mt Whitney again this summer (see last year's successful climb pictures here and the video here).Per instructions, I submitted an application via snail mail at the beginning of February. I'm hoping to lead a group of eight to do an overnight hike (just like last time) on one of the close-to-full-moon Thursday nights in July or August as my first choices, but will be happy just to get the permit for any of the nine nights I listed on the app.
Someone's crunched the data to show how many unused Whitney permits there were last year (see the spike at the end of September that coincided with the snow storm and explains why so few folks were on the trail with us September 29). Given the data, I think our odds are good in that I've asked for non-weekend days that aren't near any typical holidays.
And now I'm stuck in a holding pattern waiting for the permit lottery process to play out. My paper-based application is in a big tumbler with all the others and will be drawn out randomly to get my date assigned (and my check cashed).
So all I can do now is check the mailbox each day to see if I'm a winner. The suspense is killing me!
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