The Whitney Portal Road

I love traveling Scenic U. S. Highway 395.  There are so many spots to see along the way, such as the Ancient Bristlecone Pine National Forest and Mono Lake. The road even connects with a gateway to Death Valley. (I’ve written on Death Valley’s history including Lone Pine and “The Wedding of the Waters” as well as its 2016 Wildflowers).

The other day, a good friend and I stopped overnight in Bishop, after driving the Tioga Road from Yosemite Valley.  Heading home to Bakersfield the next day, it made perfect sense to grab a deli lunch from Erick Schat’s Bakkery for a picnic at the Mt. Whitney Portal.

A Delightful Drive along the Whitney Portal Road

The Whitney Portal Road starts in Lone Pine, California, and runs 13.7 miles to the Whitney Portal Store, the staging area before hikers ascend to Mt. Whitney (14,505 feet).  The road to the trailhead was completed in 1936.  The Portal sits at 8,374 feet, a bit more than halfway way to the summit’s elevation.

As the drive begins, Mt. Whitney looms in the distance on a fairly straight, level stretch of road through the Alabama Hills.

Although not officially part of the Sierra Nevada, the Alabama Hills are part of the same geological formation and time frame as the majestic mountain range. The Alabama Hills were just shaped by different erosion patterns, giving them their rounded contours and boulders vs. the sharp ridges and jagged granite of the mountains.

The Alabama Hills are composed of two basic types of rocks.  The orange, rather drab weathered rock is metamorphosed volcanic rock from about 150-200 million years ago.  The other rock, biotite monzogranite, is from 82-85 million years ago; this rock type underwent spheroidal weathering and produced the potato-shaped large boulders strewn about the area.  This impressive public area was appropriately designated a national scenic area in March 2019.

This nice little brook was a pleasant surprise.

And I always like the breezes that make the grasses dance.

I’m not sure when this friendly mascot appeared on the scene, but he’s been welcoming visitors along the drive up toward Mt. Whitney for years.  I call him Cyril.

About half-way to the Mount Whitney Portal, the road starts to ascend into the Sierra Nevada. Its twists, turns and switchbacks follow a steep 9% grade for about 5 miles. The drive itself was prominent in two older films: Lucille Ball’s The Long, Long Trailer (1954) and Humphrey Bogart’s High Sierra (1941).

A Fun Video:  Here is an excerpt from Lucy and Desi’s drive up the mountain!

The parking for the Portal Store is not very extensive, but the area is pretty.

Eventually, we found a place for our picnic before heading back down the mountain.

The views back down into Owens Valley and the Alabama Hills are spectacular.

I love this drive from Lone Pine, California, to the Mount Whitney Portal.

If you have not yet visited the Alabama Hills, add the drive to your to-do list.  You may even discover it looks familiar, since it has been used many times in television and movie productions, such as The Lone Ranger and Bonanza and Gunga Din and How the West Was Won.

A Little Trivia:  I lived in Alabama for a year and loved the red soil that I saw in the fields where I walked my dog.  I figured the Alabama Hills must’ve somehow been named for a similar soil makeup, given their color. But no.  The Alabama Hills were named after the CSS Alabama, a Confederate warship deployed during the American Civil War.  Many of the prospectors in the area were sympathetic to the Confederacy, so when news of the warship’s exploits made its way out to California, lots of mining claims were named after the ship.  Eventually, the whole range took on the name Alabama Hills.

Scenic U.S. Highway 395: A Few Stops (part 2)

The first time I visited Bishop and Mono Lake along U.S. Highway 395 was years ago with my dad.  We went out to find fall colors in California, an easier task than many assume.  At that time, we planned to visit other places along Highway 395 at some point in time.  That, however, never happened.  Dad died in February 2014.  This year was the first Father’s Day without him.  To honor the day, I decided to visit some places along Highway 395 that I knew he would have loved. It was a great weekend full of nature, reflection, memories and visits to two new places along Highway 395.

MOUNT WHITNEY

Earlier this year I visited Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.  These glorious parks are nestled against the western side of the Sierra Nevada.  The lofty peaks of that mountain range can be seen in the distance as one drives through the parks. However, Mount Whitney is the highest peak of the Sierra Nevada; actually, at 14,505 feet, Mount Whitney is the highest peak in the contiguous United States.*  Still, it is not visible from western views of the mountain range.  Although I knew I would not hike to the top, I wanted to see this mountain!

First Glimpse

Fortunately, Highway 395 runs along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada as the road travels through the Owens Valley, offering great views of the entire range.  Then, in Lone Pine, California, an access road runs 13 miles west into the mountains, heading to the trail head that leads to the summit, which rises about 2 miles in elevation high above Lone Pine.  En route, the partially paved road runs through the Alabama Hills, passes several camp grounds, and then ascends to the Mount Whitney Portal at an elevation of 8,360 feet.  The 22-mile-round-trip hike to the top of Mount Whitney starts at the Portal.

Some Views in Lone Pine, California

Turn Left on the Yellow Road

The Alabama Hills, where many westerns and other movies have been filmed, including classics such as Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger as well as scenes in films including Gladiator, Star Trek Generations, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Various Views of Mount Whitney

*Mount Whitney’s Height:  The elevation of any mountain is really an estimate, an educated guess based on the measurements that can be taken at the time.  One plague on the summit reads 14,494 feet while another reads 14,496.811 feet.  By 1988, improved technologies gave the newest estimate to be 14,505 feet.

 ANCIENT BRISTLECONE PINE FOREST

Forty-two miles north of Lone Pine and fifteen miles south of Bishop along Highway 395 is Big Pine, California.  It sits in the Owens Valley between the Sierra Nevada and the White Mountains at an elevation of 3.989 feet.  The town is not big; the 2010 census recorded its population as 1,756.  The tribal headquarters for the Big Pine Band of Owens Valley Paiute Shoshone Indians operates out of Big Pine.  But I traveled to this locale for its access to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the Inyo National Forest, just 13 miles east via Highway 168.

A few years ago, I did not even know that the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest existed. But now I am impressed with the strength, tenacity, and rugged gnarled and twisted beauty of these trees.

 

The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest sits on the eastern face of the White Mountains at an elevation between approximately 9,800 to 11,200 feet.  The Forest’s Patriarch, Schulman and Methuselah Groves are home to the world’s oldest living non-clonal organisms.**  The Methuselah is 4,750 years old, and the Patriarch—discovered and dated in 2103—is 5.064 years old.  Imagine that: The Patriarch germinated in 3051 B.C.  Incredible!  Visitors can hike various trails through the groves to get close to the Bristlecone Pines. However, the oldest trees are not marked with signs to protect them from vandals.  In 2008, an arsonist set fire to the Visitor Center, destroying the building, all the exhibits and several trees.  Very sad.

Highway 168 runs east from Highway 395 up into the White Mountains.  It is a great twisty curvy road that has lots of big dips, like you are on a roller coaster.  I loved it.  The canyon walls and wildflowers were gorgeous too.  But the “dip in the road” was the most fun, making me think of an old B.C. cartoon from John Hart.

Some Views Along Route 168 Heading Up & Down White Mountain

Once in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, the road eventually shifts from paved to gravel and offers some impressive sweeping vistas as well as closer views of the trees themselves.

At the Visitor Center

 

**Oldest Living Organisms:  A list of the oldest living things includes items such as a half-million-year-old actinobacteria, 5500-year-old moss, and 100,000-year-old sea grass.  In 2014, Rachel Sussman published an intriguing book that captures her research on this topic:  The World’s Oldest Living Things.

I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT MY TURNING 60 NEXT YEAR DOES NOT SEEM SO BAD, GIVEN HOW OLD SOME THINGS ARE. 

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD!