White Mt., CA

Looked up some photos of the area…it's amazing. Would love to check it out one day.

We need to plan a backpacking trip again.

Bad weather aborted our trip there to the summit. The Bristlecone Forest was amazing. Six week growing season and wood so hard it erodes instead of rots up there. Need to get back. A little gem of an area certainly.

wow the view is incredible from the summit. i have been to the grove for sunrise on the sierra, but not higher. seems like it's time for a summit hike. was just down in owens valley and looking up at the whites, but it's a whole different view from the top. nice!

Nice pics Don.

My daughter and I attempted to hike to the summit last Sept., but were stymied by the remnants of a snow storm from the prior week and couldn't make it up the last 1,000 ft. without risking coming back in the dark. She needed to bag a 13,000'+ peak for Girl Scouts, and we made it to 13,300. I'd say, after about 12,000' we had to stray off the road about 50% of the time to avoid post-holing through softening snow. We saw some bike riders attempting to slog up through the slush and it looked downright miserable. To their credit, they were doing the right thing by not going off the road into the "tundra." Hopefully the road/trail will be snow-free by end-July.

If you camp up there (e.g. Grandview), bring a telescope if you can. Even with a cheapy from Walmart you can see the rings around Saturn. We had an amateur astronomer who brought his 12" Dobsonian telescope and were able to see some pretty cool stuff (nebulae, star clusters).

If you hike the bristlecone pine forest, and want to see the Methusula tree, it is no longer signed due to past vandalism (unbelievably, people cut branches off as souvenirs). So search the web for pictures and you may recognize it; otherwise, you probably "saw it" anyway if you hike the whole trail.

The most important thing to note is that Grandview is a DRY campground! Bring all the water you'll need for as many days as you plan to spend up there.

As others have noted, the drive past Schulman grove is a dirt road that can get rutted and has rocks strewn about. While I've seen people make it up to the White Mtn Trail head in a Honda Civic, it's gotta be painful and the car may not survive the abuse even if the passengers do.

My friend drove us in his Ford F150 – going back down was worse than going up.

"While I've seen people make it up to the White Mtn Trail head in a Honda Civic"

Been there, done that. No big deal. Took the 4WD road on the west slope that drops you off in Bishop. A few stream fords and all was good. Still driving that Civic.

FYI, it's BaRcroft Research Station, not BaNcroft.

http://www.wmrc.edu/facilities/bar/default.html

They usually open the road up to Barcroft twice a year. It looks like it will be open on September 6, 2015 again in case anyone is interested.

http://www.wmrc.edu/community/default.html

I guess I still fantasize about Mrs. Robinson after all these years. Thanks for the correction Mike.
Regarding the road to the trailhead (the locked gate and the Barcroft Research Station), it was in good shape. There were a few Civic type vehicles up there. I don't think I would attempt the 4WD route to Bishop like Ken but I'm probably not as adventurous as him. The dirt road to the trailhead starts at the Schulman Grove parking area that's about 5 miles from the campground. Oddly there is a short section of paved road on the way up between Schulman Grove and Barcroft. If anyone has an explanation for that mystery fill us in.
I suspect the dirt road could be rough and possibly impassible after storms and/or a hard winter. Then again the station is manned about 6 months out of the year depending on snow conditions so the road is probably maintained regularly.