Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Nearest Car Rental?

I'm still trying to figure out how to get from Whitney Portal (after a JMT thru-hike) to an airport in a reasonable amount of time (and without paying someone half a kilobuck for a long van ride). Where's the nearest place to do a one-way car rental? Fiddling around with rental-car websites (and searching this message board) turned up <em>nothing</em> in the eastern Sierra; is this true?

Have faced the same problem a couple of times and found the easiest option was to get the CREST bus mentioned by Bob to Avis in Ridgecrest. The bus only runs Monday, Wednesday & Friday so you may want to time your arrival to match the schedule. Bus details are at http://www.countyofinyo.org/transit/transit.htm

There is internet access at the coffee shop in Lone Pine so you can book the car in advance unless you are hurrying to catch the bus. Heading north to get a hire car is also possible but will need more research with bus timetables or good luck hitchhiking.

Thanks, BobR and PhilB. CREST to Ridgecrest looks like the ticket, then a one-way rental to LA. We were planning to come out on Thursday, so the MWF schedule is perfect -- gives us a night on the town in Lone Pine, yee-har! Actually it's the shower I'm thinking about...

-BSquared

I'm a bit late coming in on this one, but I've been coming across from London (England) to hike various areas in the Sierra for a few years. We have tried various routes including the old Greyhound overnighter to Reno years ago, vans from variosu pack companies, car hire etc. Last trip we discovered that we can fly direct to InyoKern airport, near Ridgecrest, directly from LAX. Its a regular shuttle and there is also an Avis car hir facility there, or you can get a ride into Ridegcrest. I think there maybe other flights out to other airports, but I haven't checked these out.

This means that I can actually leave London at 10am, arrive LAX 1pm, make Inyo-Kern by 6pm, pick up a car and make it to Bishop by nightfall.

You might want to check out the flights from Inyo-Kern as it'll save you being hit by a one-way hire cost and its a lot quicker.

Airport site with details of flights in at: http://www.inyokernairport.com/

Enjoy the JMT; I'm heading into the Kaweah this year to do an 8 day circuit...I've seen them from Whitney so many times and thought this was the year to check them out for real.

Just FYI, United Airlines is the only airline that services Inyokern. One of my five allowed "fare watcher" city combinations is from my local airport to Inyokern. That way I can monitor the lowest currently available price to that airport on an ongoing basis.