After finishing the John Muir Trail back in 2008, we had to do some car shuffling so that my brother- and mother-in-law had a car at the trailhead they were coming out of at the end of their backpacking trip.  After arriving at our car at Whitney Portal, we drove down and north to the Onion Valley trailhead and moved their car south to the Horseshoe Meadow trailhead.  The entire time we were driving up and down these trailhead roads, I couldn’t stop thinking about how awesome it would be to ride my rode bike up and down each of these trailhead roads.  The climbs were unthinkable, the views spectacular, and the bragging rights well deserved.  Apparently, I was not the only one with this idea.  The Descenders bike club has written a couple of articles about these rides, which further reinforced my decision to try these out.

We planned a weekend on the East Side in early June so that I could try a couple of these rides.  I originally intended to try the Horseshoe Meadow and Whitney Portal trailhead roads on Friday and the Onion Valley Road and Bristlecone Pine Forest climb on Saturday.  Needless to say, I was not ready for all of these rides in a single weekend, but it’s good to set high goals, right?  In the end, I only rode the Horseshoe Meadow and Whitney Portal climbs and decided to not ride for the rest of the weekend because my knees were feeling very tired, and I had the Climb to Kaiser in a couple of weeks.

Horseshoe Meadow Trailhead Climb

Starting at the Best Western in Lone Pine, I started climbing up the Whitney Portal Road with my brother-in-law Fitty.  The initial climb out of Lone Pine is a healthy one, starting at 3,700 feet in Lone Pine to 4,500 feet after 4 miles to the junction with the Horseshoe Meadow road.  After turning left to head towards Horseshoe Meadow, the road is mainly rollers for about 3.5 miles and is your last chance to ride at a decent pace and cadence.  Then the real climb begins, and lasts another 16 miles with only one small break as you make a short descent about 3 miles before the end of the road.  The road includes 6 or so large switchbacks, some as long as 1.7 miles and are visible from Highway 395 miles below.  A freak “cold spell” came through this weekend and made conditions absolutely frigid above 9,000 feet.  The end of the road was very quiet, being so early in the season.  There are no services up there, so you better bring all the food you need.  However, there are water spigots near the pit toilets to fill up.  The descent back down was non-eventful, but very cold at first.  The descent could have been awesome if it wasn’t for the annoying expansion joints nearly every 100 feet or so that continuously jarred my body.  When I arrived back at the Whitney Portal Road, it was nice to give my hands a break from the continuous pulsing of my brake levers.

Whitney Portal Road

With my legs already tired, the climb up to Whitney Portal seemed very long and steep - mainly because it was!  Basically, this road goes straight up the gentle lower slopes of the Eastern Sierra.  Eventually, the slopes get steep enough and the road has to make a couple switchbacks during the last couple miles of the road.  Whitney Portal is at an elevation of approximately 8,300 feet, one of the lower trailheads on the East Side, and is located about 9 miles above the intersection of Whitney Portal Road with the Horseshoe Meadow road.  The road quality diminishes greatly once you reach the two switchbacks and makes for an uncomfortable descent.  However, once you get past the switchbacks on the way done (around 6,600 feet), prepare yourself for one of the best descents around.  For the next 8.5 miles, the road is fairly straight and all downhill, except for a small creek crossing that you must drop down into and climb back out of.  I was able to maintain an average of about 45 MPH during most descent, and didn’t have to drop below 35 MPH climbing up the creek crossing.  To say the least, the descent was epic!

Once you’re back to Lone Pine, enjoy a great pizza at the Pizza Factory!