Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Looking for HST shuttle/partial ride

A friend and I will be attempting the High Sierra Trail starting from Lodgepole starting July 9th and hopefully making it to the Portal on or before July 16th.

We only have 1 car and would love to connect with any other hikers doing the trail at the same time to be able to shuttle from the portal to Lodgepole - but if all else fails it's hitch hiking...

Also, if you're completing the trail either the 16 or 17th and have a couple seats free to at least go half way back west, that would also help a ton!

Speedy:

We are right behind you. HST from Crescent Meadow on the 11th, also coming from the Bay Area. I researched this pretty thoroughly, and came up with the best plan for us. Public transportation (almost) all the way. Greyhound or Amtrak, San Jose to Fresno, then a ride from a friend to Lodgepole. Park Shuttle all around Lodgepole area. From the Portal, hitch to town, stay at the Hostel, then early next day (about 6 am), CREST to Mammoth or Lee Vining, YARTS to Yosemite and Amtrak (yes Amtrak, Bus and Train combo) from Yosemite back to San Jose.You can actually get from Lone Pine back to Bay Area in one day, but we are going to try to crash at Camp 4 on the way.

We could do the same circuit out of Berkeley (BART connection), but our base is Palo Alto. With one private car, I would drive to Visalia, get the Visalia/SEKI shuttle ( EARLY: last one leaves for the park around 10 AM) to Lodgepole and look at CREST/YARTS/Amtrak/Greyhound back to Visalia. With no car, doing it without an overnight in Visalia is out, because of the Visalia/SEKI shuttle schedule, but it can be done.

There are cheaper and adventurous ways.

park at the Portal, arrange for a ride to Onion Valley. It's 22 miles from OV to Roads end (which can be done as a day hike). Only the first 4.8 miles is up, then it's all downhill after that. Then hitch a ride from roads end to your starting point (I've never had a problem hitching out of Cedar Grove).

I've done this in the past without problems. Another + is that you get to see the conditions that you are going to be hiking through on the HST.

It's always nice to have the car when you finish a hike.

Thanks for the response. We will look into the public transportation option and see what the best way is.

Salty, There is the option of carpooling (we are actually out of Redwood City). You would have to leave 1 day early, and we would wait at the end of the trip at the Portal. If this sounds like a feasible alternative, PM me and we can work out a potential plan.