What’s the best way to get off the trail and back into the ‘real’ world and catch a bus from Kennedy Meadows or near it? According to greyhound’s site, they do not service onyx or lone pine. Also, I will be arriving in KM in mid may(will it road accessible?)… ( don’t worry, I have no intention of entering the high sierras, that’s where I am going to finish hopefully).
gruel
You might try calling the KM Store 559-850-5647. Ask if they know of any public transportation and tell them your story. I’ve found that if you word things correctly, sometimes people end up offering to help you. It’s a little talent called “yogi-ing”!!!
yogi
yogi
My suspicion is that Ridgecrest will be the closest town with bus service and that the access road may not have much traffic in mid May. I would probably plan on hiking down the road to US 395, and then hitching from there south to Ridgecrest. The hitch might take a while, as people go by on 395 at about 100 miles an hour. However, it is also the main route in the area. Ridgecrest is pretty full service as it is right next to China Lake.
Suge
i have friends who will be doing a weekender out of KM from May 5 to May 8. so if you get there by that weekend they’d probably give you a ride down to the 395, perhaps farther. heck, my husband or i might be on the trip, depending on my health (i’ll be 7 months pregnant by then). i realize that’s not quite mid-May, but that area should start seeing weekend visitors by the time you get there. where do you need to get to? if you’re flying home, ONT airport will be easiest for you to get to.
there won’t be any buses running through KM. you’ll need to hitch or hire a ride. good luck!
tarbubble
in getting to KM, the closest i came by bus was mojave, the rest was hitching. but consider that anyone leaving there for civilization is at least going to ridgecrest, and there is a decent chance that if you just mill around that KM porch for a couple days you may find something to mojave or beyond. sunday may be prime time with people perhaps going home after a weekend trip.
i say yogi.
milo
tarbubble, I need to get to portland, OR. Thanks for the info, everyone, I’ll look into it.
gruel
Both are 20-30 miles west of Onyx; on or near Lake Isabella. Both have bus service. Not sure how far east they go, but I believe they’ll take you over walker pass to Ridgecrest, or to Bakersfield to the west. Kernville is a cool little relocated (damned) town with a great grassy park area to chill out at. The bus schedule is posted at all the bus stops around Kernville. Not sure about Lake Isa cuz I didn’t go there.
Munch
Kern County Transit connects to Lake Isabella and Onyx via Bakersfield; connects to Ridgecrest via Mojave (from where you can connect to LA Metrolink via Lancaster). Last year their website indicated a route from Ridgecrest to Onyx via Walker Pass. However, when I was looking last month, I didn’t see any routes through the pass.
Crest-Inyo-Mono transit runs from Bishop to Inyokern via Independence & Lone Pine.
I suspect that either way you’ll end up hitching a fair distance or paying an ungodly cab fare. Ridgecrest has cabs, I don’t know about Inyokern.
Let us know how it works out.
Splat!
it looks like a hitch to onyx and from there kern county transit to bakersfield and from a there a greyhound to portland. Or a hitch to ridgecrest and county transit to mojave and the greyhound from mojave to portland. Although the latter is a longer, significantly more expensive bus ride to portland so I think I’ll hitch out at 178 to onyx.
Thanks for the info splat! on county transit.
gurel