- new permit system details
- Lyell Canyon trailhead:Permits for 25 people, with 60% (15) available by reservation and 40% (10) available on a first-come, first-served basis.
- Happy Isles to Little Yosemite Valley, Happy Isles pass-through, Glacier Point to Little Yosemite Valley, and Sunrise Lakes trailheads: Permits for 20 people, all of which are available by reservation. Late cancellations will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, although we don’t expect any to be available most days.
- The permit request form is the same as before, but it has one extra section that states “I plan to exit over Donahue Pass”. Here you are stating where you will leave Yosemite National Park. If you plan to hike to Whitney, you will check the “yes” box. If you plan on camping outside of Yosemite, you must write in where.
- map of Yosemite trailheads
- "This is going to move a lot of people over to Inyo National Forest trailheads (like Rush Creek or Reds or Agnew Meadows, Mammoth Pass etc) or Sierra National Forest trailheads (e.g. Lakes Edison or Florence). So they will be taking shortened JMT hikes (skipping at least the first 41 miles Happy Isles to Rush Creek). One good side effect might be to encourage people who want to cover roughly 220 miles to include more sidetrips in their plans. I think that actually leads to a better hike and disperses people in the wilderness better."[1]
- "This definitely is going to force JMT hikers to go SSE to Merced Pass (multiple interesting routes/passes to go down that way) and then over to Devil's Postpile over the Mammoth Trail. And it's going to have more people doing the Mono Pass TH too. People can also start near Clover Meadow and do a northbound loop doing 4 passes and then migrating over to Devil's Postpile. A lot of these options are very interesting and more of a hike to do than the legacy JMT. I suspect Tom Harrison will sell many more of his Yosemite High Country and Ansel Adams Wilderness Maps."[1]
- "One can go from Happy Isles to Illouette Basin (or from LYV) to then go down Illouette Basin the next day, and then onto exiting the park either at Fernandez Pass or Isberg Pass and then go ENE hitting the Mammoth Trail to hit the JMT at Devil's Postpile, then down to Whitney from there."[2]
- get Yosemite High Country and Ansel Adams Wilderness area?
- on filling out the permit for alternate exit from yosemite "I put down "Nearest legal campground halfway South to Lower Merced Pass Lake" for my first night campsite. I show Whitney Portal as the Exit Trailhead (but written alongside it (leave Yose at Isberg Pass) -- and for the question "I plan to exit over Donahue Pass, I chosed "NO" and entered Isberg Pass beneath it."[2]
