Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board need the help of the locals

For my first trip to Whitney in 07 I flew into Reno and drove down 395. Great stretch of road. This Oct. I will hike Whitney again and then spend a few days in LA with my exgirlfriend. What could be better, a few days on Whitney and then a little romance. The bad news is I have to fly into LA area. My question is this, for not much diff in price flight and rental car wise, should I fly into LAX or Ontario. Once I touch down I just want to get the hell out of LA and on the road to Lone Pine. I am thinking Ontario. Could you wonderful locals please advise on which airport and which roads. I am also concerned about road closures due to the fires. thanks John

I'm obviously not local! However, when I climbed Whitney last year, I flew into Ontario. It was very easy to get into and out of and was much more convenient to Whitney than LAX. It was still a fairly long drive, but it was very direct and easy.

Your instincts are correct. Ontario is smaller and easier to get away from. From Ontario take the 15 freeway to highway 395, it almost never backs up (except perhaps Friday nights with Vegas traffic). The freeways leaving LAX are often crowded and slow. Plus Ontario is 19 miles closer to Lone Pine than LAX. Make sure your gas tank is not low, there are some remote stretches of highway which are quite beautiful; if you like desert and remote highways.

Get directions from Google maps and that will be the best way from Ontario, I10 to I 15 to 395.

Ontario is the way to go. A late AM arrival would be best. I would skip the exgirlfriend and LA and hike a few more peaks in the Eastern Sierra!

It really depends what time you're planning on touching down in L.A. The downside to LAX is fighting traffic out of L.A. if you happen to land rush hour (anytime after about 2PM). The downside to Ontario is 395 *is not* freeway - and for about the first 20-30 miles or so off the I-15, there are a plethora of traffic lights, city driving, and no passing zones.

For what it's worth - I live in Orange County, I can drive 405/5/14/305 to Bishop (past LAX) or the 91/15/395 to boshop (past Ontario). If it's non-rush hour, then driving past LAX saves me about 1/2 an hour. Of course, if I guess wrong.....

Ontario.

Ontario is by far the easiest airport in SoCal. It's a couple of miles off the 15. Take the 15 North to the 395. If you're hungry, eat NO Later than Adelanto, as there is not much after that. There's a shopping center with all the great restaurants....Carls, KFC, Del Taco, Subway....and more disgusting food. If you can wait, then go ahead and wait until Lone Pine, depending when you get there. GAS: Your tank should be full at the airport and you can make it just past Ridgecrest to a gas station (a Shell, I think) in a one man town called Pearsonville. Then off to Lone Pine. Keep the speed limit, not just because it's the law, but there were several Highway Patrol there last week when I drove through AND, it is an extremely dangerous highway from the 15 to the intersection of the 395 and 14. It's REAL Boring! But, once you see the Sierra's, it gets way better. P.S. Drink Coffee if you are at all tired to keep yourself from dozing.......again, boring is an understatement. Go to the Portal and have a super hike. Then when you're done, forget about the girlfriend and let us know how it went (the hike!).

Skip the girlfriend, job and responsibilities and stay in the mountains. They are calling...

This posting made me think of an incident on 395 some decades ago.

I was driving to Rock Creek to climb Julius Caesar, Bear Creek Spire, Abbot & Dade solo. My car was a Sunbeam Tiger (MGB-sized two-seater with a 302 CID V8). At dusk, with no oncoming traffic, it was fun to lift off the crests at about 120. I was gaining quickly on some tail lights ahead, and so when they disappeared around a bend, I backed off, preparing to come up on a much slower vehicle. Around the corner, first thing I saw was a wheel rolling off across the desert. There was a punctured beer can still spurting, and a 40s-vintage car inverted across the ditch. Nobody in the car. Found the driver in the ditch a hundred feet away, he was dead drunk and totally unharmed. So I revived him with a gallon of water (external) and dropped him off at the next town. At the Police Station.

The Statute of Limitations should be up by now. To be fair, "Vanishing Point" and "Jeremiah Johnson" were on screen at the time.

Drunk driving, however, is never excusable.

I personally prefer Ontario over LAX - but...

At LAX there are more flight options and you probably stand a better chance of gettting a non-stop flight. To me a non-stop flight to LAX is better than flying to Ontario with a connection, especially now with the planes full so if you miss your connection you might have to wait a while to get a flight with available seats.

Another option you might want to consider to is fly to Inyokern (IYK). United has 2-3 flights a day from LAX. It used to be that if you flew United the additional cost was not that much - I don't know what the current situation is. Then you are 65-70 miles from Lone Pine. Granted that would mean that you would have to drive to LA then back to Inyokern after your hike, but you could do it on you own schedule.

I'd also suggest you look into flights to/from IYK (Inyokern) rather than LAX. If you use Southwest, there are other airports in the greater Los Angeles area to choose from as well, like Burbank. Ontario is easier than LAX.

In terms of costs - IYK vs. Ontario is usually a wash, but it can depend upon the differences in vehicle rental charges and whether you have checked luggage. Southwest doesn't charge extra for checked, but most others do.

As for gas north of Adelanto - there are 2 gas stations in Inyokern, and they're usually less than Pearsonville or Brady's (the Mobil on the southbound side near the junction of 14 & 395.

There's a new gas station in Olancha now, on the southern end of town.

Isn't that the car that Maxwell Smart drove in the first few seasons of Get Smart? That car was quite a beast!

A couple of days ago I flew into/out of IYK via LAX. It was very convenient, and is a tiny little airport. The Dollar and Avis rental car counters are about 10 feet from the ticket/check-in counter, and it's another 10 feet to the TSA Security checkpoint. You pick up your rental car outside the front door of the (trailer) terminal. I have no idea what the relative costs of using IYK, as I'm an airline employee with substantial discounts. It's a very pretty, relaxing drive through the desert along the Eastern Sierra north to Lone Pine. Anecdotally, when leaving the Whitney area, I left the Whitney Portal Hostel (after holding Doug Sr. hostage for a couple of hours) at about 10:30 PM, hit the McDonalds for some coffee/ice cream, and drove the 65 miles to IYK (Ridgecrest, CA) on a beautiful, dark, starry desert night. Conveniently, I stopped to top off the rental car gas at the 24 hr Shell station in Pearsonville, about 10 miles from my destination. The last few hours of my adventure was spent trying to snooze in my rental car at the IYK airport, awaiting my 05:00 (!) flight to LAX.

Jim

That's it. 300 horses with 165/13 tires.
Geared at more than 25 mph per thousand revs., it cruised just off idle. No machine gun though.

Thanks everyone for the good info. Looks like Ontario for me. I would love to fly into Inyokern, but its about 150 bucks more and a 13 hr. flight with 2 changes vs 6 hr. 1 change Atlanta to Ontario. BTW what are the Burbank and Bakersfield airports like? For some reason Burbanks only 230 bucks rt from Atl. right now. wagga, wagga, wagga I know where from you speak about small lively cars with horsepower. My pop used to rebuild MGB's and Spitfires back in the 70's. He crammed V6's into a few of them. These are what I learned to drive in. Nothing like a small, low ctr. of grav. short wheelbase car with pleanty of power to the rear wheels to get you from point A to point B. Didn't Sunbeam make a float car? For you car nuts, I'll be celebrating my Bday at the Petite Lamans at Road Atlanta this weekend. Again, thanks for sharing info. I promise to be an alert yet relaxed driver Ontario to Lone Pine. Fuled by coffee and stimulating music. Thanks John

Hey wagga my first car ever when I was 15 was a 1963 Sunbeam Alpine. It didn't have the horsepower of a Tiger but I sure enjoyed the heck out of it.

I'll throw in an another option: Burbank Airport. It's north of LAX and alot of the nasty downtown/Orange Co. traffic is avoided. It's much smaller than LAX but still has all the amenities you would need. It's also much easier to get out of and on the road. I tend to look to fly in/out of Burbank first just because of all the hassles you encounter at LAX.

Eat Doug's Burgers after your hike. If it's toooo late, then head down to Lone Pine eat Pizza at "Pizza factory". If you are really "sick" go up to Bishop instead of going back to L.A. and eat nearly every type of pastry you can think of at Schat's Bakery (there isn't one in Lone Pine any more.)
Geeeez, no wonder I have a hard time on the trail.......I think too much about FOOD!

No, if you are "really, really sick", DRIVE up to Big Pine and have dinner at Rossi's, with their homemade salad dressings, incredible bread, and a steak or scampi...

I've never been to Rossi's, but will rectify that as soon as possible :-)