Re: Transportation to Merced Grove?

A friend and I are camping in the Valley a couple days before hiking over to Mt. Whitney and are hoping to find transportation from the Valley to the Merced Grove trailhead. Anyone know if there is public transpiration for this, or are we gonna have to hitch?
Thanks in advance for any help.

You could take YARTS from the Valley to Crane Flat, but that leaves a few miles to the Merced Grove area--either a hitchhike, a road walk, or perhaps one of the old logging roads/trails in the area. Or, you could visit the nearby Tuolumne Grove instead, which is much closer to Crane Flat.

One problem is the YARTS schedule seems to indicate that the bus leaves the Valley at 5:00pm, but if you have camping/backpacking gear you might be able to get a campsite at Crane Flat (there is no backpacker's campground there).

The YARTS to Sonora bus line goes right by the Merced Grove Trailhead, but I have no idea if they'll stop at the parking lot to let you off. You might want to call YARTS to find out if they would.

Here's a link to the Sonora to Yosemite Valley YARTS bus schedule:

http://yarts.com/routes-and-schedules/sonora-buck-meadows-yosemite-valley/

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Leave No Trace

Thanks for the responses.
Has anyone here hitched through that area? Is hitching in the park pretty common/easy?