Whitney Portal Road

Whitney Portal Road heads west from the stoplight in Lone Pine, on Highway 395, straight at the wall of the Sierra. About two and a half miles out it crosses the Alabama Hills, a jumble of boulders that Congress made a National Scenic Area in 2019. More than 400 movies have been filmed here since 1920, and Movie Road, which branches off to the right, leads into the hills where many of them were shot.

Past the hills the road runs up the open slope toward the mountains, then climbs the face of the range in long switchbacks. It ends at Whitney Portal, where the trail to Mount Whitney begins. The road dead-ends there, so you come back down the same way.

Storm damage has closed the road for long periods, most recently after Hurricane Hilary, when the county and the Federal Highway Administration rebuilt it.