Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Yosemite to Lone Pine travel time?

We will be backpacking in Yosemite for a few days in June and then leaveing from Tuolumne and heading down to climb Whitney. I am figureing about 3 hours or so to reach Lone Pine. Is this a realistic number? It looks like we'll be takeing 395 all the way down. Is this the best route from Yosemite? Should we head out of Yosemite a different way and come in from somewhere else? This will be our first time out there, so I'm not familiar with the roads at all. I'm hopeing that all roads will be free of snow by mid-June.

Thanks for any help.

That sounds about right on all counts. Taking 120 E to 395 S is really the only route from there, and it usually takes me a bit over 80-90 minutes to get home in Bishop from Tuolumne/Tioga Pass. From there it's another 60-70 minutes to Lone Pine, then another 15-20 minutes up to the Portal.

The only issue you may run into is whether Tioga Pass will even be open in Mid-June. Depends entirely on the snow year we end up having. You can check here for road conditions and prospective dates of it opening as you get closer to your visit.

Otherwise, it's a LONG slog going down through Fresno, south to Bakersfield, east through Tehachapi, then north on the 14/395 back to LP. About 5-6 hours I would guess (SteveC a little help here?).

Good luck, have fun!

-L

Wow, thanks for the quick reply. I will check that link for road conditions, thanks.

I really hope Tioga pass will be open. We are flying into Vegas and driving up from there. I'm pretty sure that its the only entrance on the eastern side of Yosemite. please correct me if I'm wrong. If Tioga pass is closed, can you recommend the next best route for us?

Thanks again for the help.

If Tioga is still closed, the only other option is to cruise to the west-side, then the first entry point is Hwy 41 from Fresno, then 140 from Merced, and finally 120 from Madera. (Those are listed south to north). It's a long haul. But they also close the Tioga Road pretty far on the west side, usually from just above Crane Flat. I don't know where you are planning on packing, but if there's any attempt at acclimating I would venture to guess you were headed for the eastside.

I would just keep an eye on it and your options open. There are plenty of great places to spend a few days over on the east side for getting ready for Whit if YNP is still shut down over Tioga Pass.

The time from Yosemite to Fresno is 2 hours. From Fresno to Lone Pine about 5.

Tioga Pass is usually open by Memorial Weekend. So far, the winter is turning up on the dry side, so it is likely to be open. It would take a very wet several months to catch up and make a heavy snow year.

What time in June are you going to be here?

One year I crossed Tioga pass from Fresno on Jan. 1st. Hit by a blizzard at Ruby Lake, nearly froze the dog. Drove north & they closed the pass about 30 seconds before we got there, with a resultant 7 hour journey back through Bakersfield with a very pissed young lady & dog.

Actually the dog was a Lab/Boxer mix & wasn't bothered much, but the young lady...

Your Mileage May Vary.

Please Note: If Tioga Pass is not open, Tioga Road will not be open from Crane Flat as well. Even if you wanted to drive the extra distance, you cannot drive to Tuolumne Meadows from the west (i.e. Fresno) if the pass is closed. The park will not open the road until it is completely plowed.

Well if you have to take the long way around through Bakersfield i'd recommend 178 over 58, it takes about the same amount of time but is way more scenic.

If you follow a series of links from that the Moose dropped, you will get to this page, which has the opening date of the pass for the last few decades:


http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/seasonal.htm

Thanks for all of the great info everyone. I will definitley keep my fingers crossed for a light snow year. According to the link above, the road was closed until late June in 2005 and 2006, so that is not good.

We arrive in Vegas on June 11th, then head up to Yosemite until Sunday the 14th. Were have permits for parking at Tenaya lake and heading to clouds rest, then camping near the JMT/Half Dome trails and hitting Half Dome on Saturday morning. We will then head down into the valley and check things out. I just got Upper Pines reservations today for Sat . night, then on Sunday we'll leave sometime and head to Whitney. We will stay there Monday and Tuesday to acclimate a bit. Spend Tue. night at Ice Berg Lake and hopefully summit on Wed. morning and return to Vegas for a night before heading back to Jersey. I know were trying to squeeze a lot in to one week, but that is how I like to do things. ;-)

I'm hopeing to do a longer trip to Northern Yosemite next year. Now that I've done more researching, I'm amazed at how much more there is than just the valley. I may just have to move out there. ;-)

Thanks again for the help guys.

Just another heads-up: the cables on Half Dome may or may not be up. According to the YNP information sheet the cables typically are down "from the day after Columbus Day until the third weekend in May". Yes, this would mean they're possibly up before your time frame. Use the same conditions page as the one I linked above (scroll to the bottom under "Trails and Wilderness" to see the current state of affairs on the cables.

Sounds like a great trip. Hope it all comes through!

-L

My 1/2 cent worth - the weather is v. unpredictable lately. Who knows what June will bring? CA needs a lot of snow and rain since we're in a drought. That said, I would have contingency plans if I were you.

One other thing, from a planning standpoint:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/snow/PLOT_SWC

This site is one of the best tools, IMHO, as to what is happening with snowpack accumulation. It is starting to look grim, and would really require some very serious storms to make this more than an average year.

We got up for our standard complimentary breakfast around 9am and enjoyed stuffing our faces in preparation for the day. Fully fuelled, we headed north from Lone Pine to Bishop and then a small town called Lee Vining.

Yosemite Bus Tour

Hey WDWDEN

Reading your post I noticed you have achieved the impossible as well and obtained a camping reservation in upper pines campground in the valley. As much as I hate the upper pines campground the location is awesome. You can walk to pizza and showers at Curry Village and it's walking distance to Happy Isles - the start of the JMT and the slog to the half dome cables. The cables have become an annual tradition with me and my daughter. We will be in site 233 Saturday night so come by and say hi. We'll up at 4am for our Sunday half dome hike.

A heads up on the cables for Saturday when you will be there. Plan on coming down the cables by noon. Saturdays have become a traffic nightmare on the cables. After noon you may have to wait up to 2 hours in a line just to get to the bottom of the cables. Crazy crowded and crazy people. That's why we now do it on Sundays. Just get up early and you'll be ok. In a normal snow year you'd be hitting some pretty good drifts on the trail in the Tenaya area. Shouldn't be too bad this year but you will be hiking on snow but it should diminish quickly as you lose altitude. We haven't got much lately other than a beautiful early March storm.

Tioga pass almost surely will be open.

A word about the campgrounds in the valley. Upper Pines is a mass of humanity, similar to trail camp, only much worse. Do you know about the backpacker camps in Yosemite? Anyone with a wilderness permit can stay in them the night before and after the dates of their permit. There is a great quiet backpacker camp right on the merced river just downstream from the upper pines campground. Waaaay nicer than upper pines. It's a walk in, no reservations required and it never fills. $5 bucks a head. I highly recommend it.

Terry

Hey Apeman45,

Yes, I was very happy to get that reservation! I was on the website a few minutes before they started takeing reservations for the first day. About 10 minutes later, there were only a few slots left. They definitley fill up fast. I'm used to fighting for table reservations down at Walt Disney World. At 7am, 6months prior, y ou have to be on the phone if you want to have breakfast with Cinderella. With in a few minutes, they are all gone. I just hope the crowds in Yosemite arent as bad as Disney World. ;-)

Yeah, we'll stop by and say hello. I am very excited about this trip. I just pray that the cables are up and the Toulume entrance is open.

I was calling all day long to get my trail permit and I was starting to get discouraged, but I finally got through.

Do you know what happens if we can't start at Tenaya lake, b/c the roads are closed. Our permit has us starting there and ending up in the Valley.

We will be camping near Half Dome on Friday night, above the back country campground, right at a trail junction. I forget the name, but its been recommended by others. We plan to get up Half Dome early and get down early.

I'm really looking forward to camping in the valley. I've been looking at pictures for the past 5 months. It can't get here soon enough.

> Do you know what happens if we can't start at Tenaya lake, b/c the roads are closed. Our permit has us starting there and ending up in the Valley.

This has been another low water winter, so Tioga Pass will open in May, like the past two years.

Oh wow, I thought they were getting hammered out there with snow. I am always seeing what looks like big snow storms in the Sierra's on the news.

Does that mean the road will most likely be open all the way to Toulumme? That is the direction we plan on comeing in from, since were driving up from Vegas.

It's pretty curious what news gets shown. The news here is about water rationing and farmers not planting.

Yosemite opens the road all the way, or not at all. Once it is declared "open", you can get to Tuolumne Meadows from either side.

I watch ABC local news for Philadelphia. I don't actually get your local forecasts, but I see on the radar map and hear them say about snow in the seirras. Of course, it usually looks like its farther south, like the Whitney area. Oh well, I am just happy to hear that it shouldnt be an issue now. I was starting to worry a bit.

Thanks for the info Steve.