Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Drive time from Big Pine to White Mtn Locked Gate

Can anyone give me an estimate of how long it will take to drive from Big Pine to the start of the White Mtn hike, in a Jeep. I'm planning on going this wknd and want to see if it is practical to do this in one long day from Orange County, without overnighting somewhere. Thanks.

It's probably between 1:30 and 2:00 from Big Pine to the gate at 11,635', depends if you have a clean shot once you get above Schulman or you are stuck behind the tourists.

What we usually do is stop at Whitney Portal for the night coming from San Berdo Co.

Bill

Estimates by Travis5152 are reasonable. Two wrinkles:

1. The drive will "feel" a helluva lot longer because the last 17 miles of that road are brutally rough.

2. Doing White Mt. in a day from Orange County seems needlessly grueling to me. Why not camp one night? Also, make no mistake about the fact that the White Mt. hike is deceptively tough - mostly due to altitude. If you've got some experience with 14,000-foot hikes, and you know your body will adapt just fine, I think your plan could work. But it's entirely possible that doing White Mt. in a day from Orange could turn out to be just plain miserable.

Good luck!

Why not drive up the night before, and toss out a bag somewhere in the White Mtn range once you hit Westgard Pass above Big Pine. There are several camp grounds (no water) in the area that are pleasant, and should be nearly empty this time of year.

Wake up to the coyotes' howling in the morning, have a quick breakfast and head on to the White Mountain trial head. Bag the peak and drive home tired and happy. Sounds like a great trip!

We drove from LA and slept at the gate. At 12000 feet the elevation was high enough I could hardly sleep and really felt the elevation. It was quite chilly and breezy up there on the ridge also. You need at least one night before going up. I agree the elevation makes the 14 miles seem kind of long, even though elevation gain is probably about 2500 feet.

One other thing about White Mtn. is that it can get really windy up there since there is nothing to abate it. I've read posts where people have been turned around because of the wind. We had a pretty cool windy day in July.

The road from Shulman to the gate range anywhere from brutal to super. I was up there one October when they were scraping the road and the only rough area was the climb north of the road to Patriarch Grove. In July it was fair to rough.

Bill

Bill