Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Local Driving Distances Around Whitney Area

This data was compiled using Yahoo Maps and a right click with the mouse which allows me to place the beginning and end points of a route anywhere on a road, even if it isn't in a city and doesn't have an address. (The footnotes in the distance and time columns refer to values that may be more accurate than the corresponding Yahoo Maps values in the table.)

(Software glitch: When you click on a map link in the table below you may not get the specific map on the first try. Just go back to this page and click on the link again and it should get you to the specific map. Afterwards, you should not have this problem when you click on the other map links. BTW, you might try clicking on the "satellite" and "hybrid" buttons on the map for interesting views.)

Driving Distances and Times From A To B*

A	B	distance (miles)	time (hr:min)	Map
Lone Pine1	Whitney Portal	12.5a	0:27	LP-WP
"	Horseshoe Meadow	22.8	0:55	LP-HM
"	Onion Valley	28.8b	0:46	LP-OV
Whitney Portal	Horseshoe Meadow	29.2	1:25d	WP-HM
"	Onion Valley	41.3	1:09	WP-OV
Bartlett2	Horseshoe Meadow	14.7	0:47	B-HM
Independence3	Onion Valley	13.0c	0:29	I-OV

                    * This table used data from Yahoo Maps.

                    1 "Lone Pine": Intersection of Hwy 395 and Whitney Portal Rd.
                    2 "Bartlett":  Intersection of Hwy 395 and Carroll Creek Rd. which
                             is 8.5 miles south of the above intersection in Lone Pine.
                    3 "Independence": Intersection of Hwy 395 and Market St.

                    a 11.7 according to VersatileFred and his Orientation Notes.
                      11.8 on my odometer.
                    b 29.0  "  "    "
                    c 13.1  "  "    "
                    d 1:00 according to wbtravis5152

It's been a very long time since I've been to the Horseshoe Meadow area so any corrections would be appreciated. And I've never tried the Bartlett to Horseshoe Meadow route where one exits Hwy 395 at Carroll Creek Rd. Is this an acceptable route? Thanks.

You don't drive fast enough from Whitney Portal to Horseshoe Meadows. . I've done this drive in about an hour.

wbtravis5152, I agree. An average speed of about 20 MPH (i.e. 29.2mi in 1:25) does seem too slow. I'll wait awhile for any other responses before making changes. Thanks!

Thanks for posting the information. Now the people with the burning questions have a place to go.

FYI, my odometer (which tracks pretty well with the highway milage markers) indicated 11.7 miles to the WPS from the traffic signal. Street Atlas USA also lists the distance as less than 12 miles.

Thanks VersatileFred. I added footnotes in the distance and time columns that refer to values from people's experiences.

Last week I drove to Whitney Portal and Onion Valley. I added some mileage footnotes to the table. It looks like the Yahoo mileage estimates are pretty good.

I'm not sure what more to say about the accuracy of the Yahoo time estimates. I think there's a big diversity in how fast people drive these roads in any case. WBTravis5152's experience may give an idea about how much one can depend on the Yahoo time estimates. Perhaps the way to use the Yahoo time estimates is to take them as upper limits, i.e. one should be able to drive the given route in the Yahoo time or less.

One thing to note about the drive back from Onion Valley, a deer jumped out in front of my car in the lower part of the road and just stayed there and stared at me. Can't say it was caught in my headlights because it was the afternoon. Luckily it was about 100yds away. I slowed down for the rest of the drive down to Hwy 395.

Thanks for double checking the distance to the Portal. You also measured less than 12 miles. I don't know where the "13 miles" that I sometimes see in literature came from.