Rising out of the northern Mojave Desert, the mountainous backbone of the Sierra Nevada announces itself with a bang two hundred miles north of Los Angeles at 14,494ft Mount Whitney , the highest point in the lower 48 states. A silver-gray ridge of pinnacles forms a nearly sheer wall of granite, dominating the small roadside town of LONE PINE eleven thousand feet below. Motels here include the Dow Villa Motel/Historic Dow Hotel at 310 S Main St (tel 760/876-5521 or 1-800/824-9317, ; $50-75), where John Wayne always stayed when filming in the area, and the Best Western Frontier Motel , 1008 S Main St (tel 760/876-5571 or 1-800/528-1234; $35-50). Those headed north might want to push on sixteen miles to Independence, where the slightly run-down but atmospheric Winnedumah Hotel , 211 N Main St (tel 760/878-2040; $35-50), operates as an HI- hostel with $18 beds which includes breakfast. You can camp at Tuttle Creek campground (free; no water) on Horseshoe Meadow Road some four miles west of Lone Pine beyond the Alabama Hills. The Pizza Factory , 301 S Main St (tel 760/876-4707), and the diner-style Mt Whitney Restaurant , 227 S Main St (tel 760/876-5751), are decent places to eat . The Eastern Sierra Interagency Visitor Center , a mile south of town on US-395 at the junction of Hwy-136 (daily: June-Aug 8am-6.50pm; Sept-May 8am-5.50pm; tel 760/876-6222), is a great source of information about the Owens Valley.

Many early Westerns, and the epic Gunga Din , were filmed in the Alabama Hills to the west, a rugged expanse of bizarrely eroded sedimentary rock. Some of the oddest formations are linked by the Picture Rocks Circle , a paved road that loops around from Whitney Portal Road, passing rocks shaped like bullfrogs, walruses and baboons.

Two thousand eager souls make the strenuous 22-mile round-trip hike (12-16hr; 6100ft ascent) to the summit of Mount Whitney each summer. Permits are needed and are awarded by lottery: ensure your application (available at ) is postmarked February and sent to the Wilderness Reservation Office, Inyo National Forest, 873 N Main St, Bishop, CA 93514 (fax 760/873-2484). On a trial basis, cancelled reservations are available by phone from 1 to 5pm, Monday to Friday at 760/873-2483. All hikers pay a $15 fee.

One-day ascents start at dawn from either the Whitney Portal   campground (mid-May to mid-Oct; tel 1-877/444-6777; $13), or the one-night-only first-come-first-served Whitney Trailhead site ($8) at the end of twisting Whitney Portal Road, reachable via trailhead shuttle (tel 760/876-5518). The trail cuts up to boulder-strewn Trail Crest Pass, the southern end of the 220-mile John Muir Trail to Yosemite, then climbs along the top of vertical cliffs. At the rounded summit, a stone cabin serves as an emergency shelter-though not one you'd choose to be in during a lightning storm.

Lone Pine

• Lone Pine

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