RATING: ♦♦♦♦♦
- Dates: Apr 14, 2019 – Apr 21, 2019
- Length of stay: 7 nights.
- Cost per night: Free.
- Discount: N/A.
- Hookups: None.
- Site number/quality: This is dispersed camping. Sites are simply wherever there is a place to park off the road. Each site is unique, and the number of places to camp are countless. Some sites are much better than others, and it can take a while to find one that’s suitable. We spent an hour finding ours, which turned out to be a nice level site on a slight rise next to the main dirt road. It had great views, plenty of space, and good cell service. The only negative was occasional vehicle dust and noise.
- Park Quality: The Alabama Hills Recreation Area is a great place to boondock. It is located in the the high desert among endless rock features, including the famous Mobius Arch. The park is on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, up against Mount Whitney. There are 30,000 acres with three designated campgrounds, along with open-desert dispersed camping throughout. We like the dispersed camping, even though there are no amenities: no water, no trash, no pavement, and no facilities whatsoever. This also means there are no fees.
- Access: Our dispersed camping site was along Movie Rd, so named because of the many movies that have been filmed here. It is a wide, fairly smooth, dirt road with a network of side roads branching off. These side roads were initially cut by the movie companies to access the hills with their film equipment. Visitors can now use these same roads to access fantastic camping sites. Some are suitable for big rigs, and some aren’t. Movie Road runs off Whitney Portal Rd, which runs between Mt Whitney and US-395 in the center of Lone Pine.
- Connectivity: Cell service is hit or miss, depending on what rocky hills block the signal. One of the reasons we choose our particular site is that we were able to get a good signal from AT&T. Verizon and T-Mobile were non-existent at our site, even though they were both strong in town.
- Return yes/no?: Sure hope so.
- Notes: While here, we visited the Lone Pine Film History Museum, which documents the long film history in the area. Over 400 movies and TV shows, mostly Westerns, were shot here. This history is reflected in the place names. Our camping area was in Roy Rogers Flats, and our main view overlooked Lone Ranger Canyon. We streamed a couple of episodes of Hopalong Cassidy and recognized several locations. Also portions of Star Wars and Ironman were filmed here.
- Website: Alabama Hills
