Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Onion Valley Campground to Whitney

Greetings to all. We are newbies to Whitney and will do our first ascent via the Main Trail. We were able to secure day passes from folks who are also offering a campsite at Onion Valley for three nights prior to the ascent. I appreciate that the altitude at Onion Valley will be excellent for aclimitizing, but I wonder about the logistics for the morning of the climb. Do we drive out from Onion Valley, back to Independence, south on 395 to Lone Pine and up to Whitney Portal? Or does Onion Valley have connecting trails to the Main Trail? I will be getting a map, info, etc., but I thought I would tap the knowledge of you nice people on this board. Many thanks in advance for your guidance.

Your directions from Onion Valley Campground to Whitney Portal sound correct. None of the dirt roads in the area going here and there would be better then just going back through Independence and down the 395 to Lone Pine.
My guess is it will take more then 45 minutes but not more then 1 hour to make the trip. I remember the campground being 9200 feet or so. Both Onion Valley campground and Whitney portal are 13 miles from town. That is 26 miles plus the distance from Lone Pine to Independence (18 miles). About 43 miles or so.

With a little fiddling on topozone you can see both areas on one map.

http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=11&...mp;layer=DRG250

If you are going to be at Onion Valley, an excellent day hike for acclimatizing purposes would be up to Kearsarge Pass and perhaps beyond.

Mike