Las Vegas to San Francisco

[bossandjerry]

Hi All,

I know this topic has been posted alot and I have read through alot of the threads, which have been really helpful.

Can anyone give me a bit of advice on a trip I'm planning, my and my partner will be in LV end of March and we have allowed 2 days to travel to San Francisco, I know its a short amount of time but we thought it would be great to drive and see a little bit of the US outside of cities. Id' like to maybe drive for 6 hrs a day, stay somewhere inbetween. I'm sure it would be amazing to see Death Valley, given our time si understand Yosemite really would need another day
so we'll have to do that next time.

Does anyone have a suggested itinerary for great 2 day drive from LV to SF via Death Valley, alternatively I'm really happy for anyone to suggest the best mot interesting route for a 2 day road trip. (Route and perhaps timing ideas? Best spot to stop over)

This is a great forum so thanks for any feedback you may send my way!

Thanks
Clay

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

At this time of year the mountain passes over the Sierra's will still be closed due to snow at high elevation, therefor you will have to drive around the mountains to get to SF, the Tioga pass [CA120] route that would of let you see some of Yosemite is not an option. Death valley is a wonderful landscape and well worth the detour, from Vegas you can head to Pahrump on 160 and then take the "locals route" along Ash Meadows/State line road to Death valley junction and then 190 across. If you spent the day travelling through DV and do a little sight seeing, you could possibly make an overnight stop in the Lake Isabella area. This would leave you a straight run into SF of around 6 hours on I 5 or a little longer on CA99. If you wanted to sight see you could head into the Sequoia National Monument from Lake Isabella [via Kernville] and follow the Kern river Highway to Johnsondale and connect with 190 through Camp Nelson to Porterville and connect with 99. This is a scenic, but slow going mountain drive with an opportunity to walk around the "Trail of 100 giants", a secluded grove of Sequoia trees. This "short" drive will add at least 2/3 hours of drive time. Another option is the Sequoia National park where you could enter on the 198 near to Visalia/Exeter and will exit to the North on 180 to Fresno. Another wonderful drive, and you can visit the largest living thing on earth, the "General Sherman tree" in the Giants forest. One warning, March is still classed as winter, and you could see snow and ice in the park at higher elevation so it is important to check current conditions before travelling. This would also be a very full day on the road [think 10 hours or more] and if you only want to travel for 6 or 7 hours each day, then driving direct to SF on day 2 is your only real option if visiting DV on day 1.

[glc]

Another possibility instead of going south around the Sierras would be to head out of Death Valley north on US-395 to the Lake Tahoe area and take CA-88 or US-50 across - those roads are both maintained year round. However, those routes are subject to snowstorms and may have chain restrictions, check before you commit yourselves. Also note that the CA-89 "shortcut" over Monitor Pass may or may not be open for the season yet. Current conditions will be available on the Caltrans website.