I Got the Whitney Permit — Whitney Journal Entry 1
March 2026
I Got the Whitney Permit
I checked the lottery results on my phone in a parking lot in Arcadia. Read the confirmation email three times. Sat there for a while just looking at the date: September 23, 2026.
The Mount Whitney day hike permit lottery is competitive. I’ve applied before. The permit window is narrow — the quotas for September fill almost instantly and the rejection rate is high enough that applying without expectation is the right attitude. I expected rejection. I got a permit instead. That’ll wake you up on a Tuesday morning.
Mount Whitney is 14,505 feet. The highest peak in the contiguous United States. The standard day hike route from Whitney Portal is 22 miles round trip with 6,100 feet of elevation gain. I am 56 years old. I work a full-time job. My current longest training hike is 8 miles.
So we have some work to do.
What the Whitney Journal Is
I’m documenting everything. The training hikes — every one of them becomes a trail review on this site. The gear decisions — every piece I test becomes a gear review. The setbacks, the good days, the days where I wonder what I was thinking applying for this permit. All of it.
I want this to be honest in a way that most hiking content isn’t. You’ll find plenty of accounts of people who summited Whitney and made it sound inevitable, like they were always going to get there and the outcome was never in doubt. That’s not what this is. At 56, with a full-time job and two days a month to train, September 23 is genuinely uncertain. I might not summit. I might turn around at Trail Camp. I might have a perfect day and sign the register at the top.
I don’t know which one it’ll be. That’s what makes it worth documenting.
The Plan
Two training hikes per month from April through August. Primarily San Gabriel Mountains, where I can get elevation work without driving four hours. The Santa Monica Mountains for recovery hikes and June’s dog days. One or two Eastern Sierra trips in summer if timing allows — altitude acclimatization is going to matter on Whitney and you can’t simulate 14,000 feet in the San Gabriels.
Gear audit in April. I know roughly what I need. I’ll test everything on training hikes and review it here honestly — what works, what doesn’t, what I’d tell you to buy versus skip.
September 21-25: full week off. Drive up 395. Eastern Sierra local hikes Monday and Tuesday to shake out the legs and shake off sea-level lungs. Summit day September 23. Whatever happens after that, we document.
June’s Role
June won’t be on Whitney — dogs aren’t permitted above Whitney Portal on the day hike route. But she’ll be on every training hike where dogs are allowed. Her trail reports will continue through the whole training period. She doesn’t care about summit permits. She cares about whether there’s water at mile 3.
The Philosophy, Stated Once
The summit is optional. Coming home is mandatory.
I mean that. If the conditions are wrong, if I’m not right, if something doesn’t feel safe — I turn around. No permit is worth a helicopter rescue or something worse. I’m going to try hard to get to the top. I’m going to try harder to make good decisions about when not to.
That’s the deal. Let’s go.
— Andrew