- Where
- West of Lone Pine, Owens Valley,
Inyo County, California - Coordinates
- 36.61° N
118.13° W (Mobius Arch) - Managed by
- Bureau of Land Management
(Bishop Field Office) - National Scenic Area
- 18,610 acres,
designated 12 March 2019 - Films
- More than 400 since 1920
(the BLM’s count) - Mount Whitney
- 14,505 ft (4,421 m),
to the west - Getting there
- US 395 to Lone Pine, then
Whitney Portal Road 2.5 miles - Advisory
- United States
(no State Department level)
Round orange boulders heaped like bread rolls left out to cool, and behind them a row of jagged peaks with snow on the tops. Along the dusty road every bend looked like somewhere I had seen before, and I kept half expecting a stagecoach. At dusk a lizard on my rock declined to move, so we shared it, and watched the peaks go pink together.
The short answer
The Alabama Hills are a range of hills and rock formations near the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, in the Owens Valley west of Lone Pine, Inyo County, California, Wikipedia records; though separate from the Sierra Nevada on the map, they belong to the same geological formation. The Bureau of Land Management, which manages them, describes a formation of rounded rocks and eroded hills set between the jagged peaks of the Sierra Nevada and the Inyo Mountains. The BLM’s brochure counts nearly 30,000 acres of public land in the hills; on 12 March 2019 Congress designated 18,610 acres of them the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area, in the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act. The BLM had run them as the Alabama Hills Recreation Area since 24 May 1969, Wikipedia records. Some land in the hills belongs to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and is open for day use only. The BLM’s page asks visitors to respect the land on behalf of the valley’s indigenous people, who “still reside in this place where their ancestors have lived for thousands of years”.
Why it's worth knowing
A century of films. Beginning in 1920, the BLM says, Hollywood filmmakers took an interest in the hills for their scenery, and more than 400 movies have been filmed there since: Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and the Lone Ranger shot it out with outlaws; Gunga Din, Yellow Sky and How the West Was Won were filmed along Movie Road; the 1990 science-fiction film Tremors was made almost entirely on location in the hills; and Star Trek Generations, Gladiator, Iron Man and Django Unchained followed. Wikipedia puts the first known films a little earlier: two lost films shot in 1919 and released in early 1920, while the oldest surviving film shot in the hills is The Round-Up (1920), with Roscoe Arbuckle and a cameo by Buster Keaton.
The museum and the festival. In Lone Pine, the town’s film museum, which the BLM calls the Museum of Western Film History, keeps the area’s film story; Wikipedia lists among its exhibits the dentist’s wagon from Django Unchained, the 1937 Plymouth Humphrey Bogart drove in High Sierra and one of the underground monsters from Tremors. Each October the community holds the Lone Pine Film Festival, with speakers, actors and bus tours to the places where the films were shot, the BLM says.
One granite, two shapes. The peaks of the Sierra Nevada and the rounded hills below them are the same granitic rock, the BLM’s brochure explains; the hills’ odd, rounded shapes are the work of chemical weathering. Wikipedia names the main rock as an 85-million-year-old biotite monzogranite that weathers into large, roundish boulders, many standing on end, beside an older, orange-weathering metamorphosed volcanic rock of 150 to 200 million years. Mount Whitney towers about nine thousand feet above the hills, which stand some 1,500 feet above the valley floor; the steep edge they sit on was made by the same fault system as the Lone Pine earthquake of 1872, which moved the ground six to eight feet vertically in a single event, destroyed most of the town and killed 26 people, Wikipedia’s articles record.
The field notes
A name from a sea battle
The hills are named after the CSS Alabama, a Confederate warship of the American Civil War, Wikipedia records: prospectors in California who sympathised with the Confederacy named mining claims after the ship as news of its voyages arrived, and the name spread to the whole range. When the USS Kearsarge sank the Alabama off Normandy in 1864, prospectors who sympathised with the Union named a mining district, a mountain pass, a peak and a town after the Kearsarge. Wikipedia’s article on Lone Pine dates the naming of the hills to 1862.
Windows in the rock
Dozens of natural arches stand among the boulders, reached by short walks from the Whitney Portal Road, Movie Road and the Horseshoe Meadows Road, Wikipedia records; among them are Mobius Arch, Lathe Arch, the Eye of Alabama and Whitney Portal Arch. Mobius Arch, on a short loop trail, takes its name from its likeness to a Möbius strip; its window is about 6.5 feet tall, and it is a favourite of photographers because it frames Mount Whitney. The BLM’s page lists stargazing among the hills’ activities, and Wikipedia gives their night sky a class 2 rating on the Bortle scale of darkness. The Paiute name for Mount Whitney is Tumanguya, its article records.
Movie Road through the Alabama Hills.
Photograph: Trailblazertraveler · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
The Sierra Nevada under Lathe Arch.
Photograph: John Fowler · Southern Sierras show under this small arch in the Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine, California · CC BY 2.0 · cropped
Mobius Arch, with the Sierra Nevada beyond.
Photograph: Jesse Pluim / Bureau of Land Management · Public domain
Spring flowers between the boulders.
Photograph: Jesse Pluim / Bureau of Land Management · Public domain · cropped
Granite boulders off Movie Road.
Photograph: Person-with-No Name · Alabama Hills (51636328079) · CC BY 2.0 · cropped
A desert horned lizard.
Photograph: Jesse Pluim / Bureau of Land Management · Public domain · cropped
- Be at the stone window before sunrise, and wait for the mountain behind it to catch the first light.
- Drive the dusty road slowly with the windows down, and stop wherever a bend looks familiar. One will.
- Prop the list against a boulder for a photograph. (A man in a wide hat asked whether it had an agent. It has not, but it has been standing differently since.)
- This valley is somebody’s home, and was before the cameras came. Take pictures, and nothing else.
- Sit out on a rock after sundown, while it still holds the day’s warmth, and let the sky fill up without you.
Mobius Arch. A short loop trail in the Alabama Hills leads to a granite arch named for its likeness to a Möbius strip, Wikipedia records; its window is about 6.5 feet tall, and photographers and filmmakers come to it because it frames Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States. It is one of dozens of natural arches in the hills, and it stands where the weather made it.
Tally, in the marginFor a good while I admired the twist in the stone, and took a careful photograph of the hole itself, which is a handsome hole. Then a man beside me bent down to look through it, and I saw that a whole mountain had been standing in the frame all along, waiting for me to catch up.
Getting there
How to get there. By road: “Take Hwy 395 to Lone Pine. Turn west at the stoplight onto Whitney Portal Road, drive 2.5 miles to Movie Road, turn right,” the BLM’s directions say. The Eastern Sierra Visitor Center, two miles south of Lone Pine at the junction of US 395 and State Route 136 and staffed by the Forest Service, the Park Service and the BLM, gives road, weather and campground information; its hours vary with staffing, and it closes on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day, the BLM says. Nine miles north of Lone Pine on US 395, about 226 miles by road from Los Angeles, lies Manzanar National Historic Site, which the National Park Service keeps as the site of one of ten camps where the US government incarcerated Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens during the Second World War.
When to go. Wildflowers bloom in the hills every spring, the BLM says, and the Lone Pine Film Festival is held each October. Inyo County’s road status report (updated 11 August 2026) listed Whitney Portal Road as open, with a warning to watch for falling rocks, and calls the seasonal winter closures of several mountain roads, Whitney Portal among them, routine. Toilets in the hills are portable ones, at the Mobius Arch trailhead and across from the Shark Fin parking area, the BLM’s page says.
What to arrange ahead. As of 21 October 2026 the BLM’s pages list no entrance fee for the hills. Since 1 October 2024, camping at the designated semi-primitive campsites has needed the BLM’s free Alabama Hills camping permit, valid for a year, which does not guarantee a site, as all sites are first come, first served; a California campfire permit, free, is required on BLM land; and drone operators must obtain a BLM drone-use permit before flying in the Alabama Hills Recreation Area. The BLM’s Tuttle Creek Campground beside the hills has 83 sites, with a $10 fee for its dump station.
Safety. The State Department’s travel advisories cover other countries, so none applies here. The BLM’s page for the National Scenic Area publishes its own safety list for the hills, on water, sun, footwear and leaving a plan with someone, and notes that cell phone signals might not always be available; it asks visitors to keep to existing roads and trails, because crushed desert plants can take decades to recover.
Mark this place
Common questions
Where are the Alabama Hills?
The Alabama Hills are in the Owens Valley west of Lone Pine, Inyo County, California, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada below Mount Whitney, Wikipedia records; the Bureau of Land Management manages them, and its directions run from US 395 at Lone Pine up Whitney Portal Road for 2.5 miles to Movie Road.
How many films were made in the Alabama Hills?
The Bureau of Land Management says more than 400 movies have been filmed in the Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine, California, since Hollywood filmmakers began to come in 1920, among them Gunga Din, How the West Was Won, Tremors, Gladiator, Iron Man and Django Unchained.
What is Movie Road?
Movie Road leads into the Alabama Hills from Whitney Portal Road, 2.5 miles west of Lone Pine, California, by the Bureau of Land Management’s directions; the BLM records that Gunga Din, Yellow Sky and How the West Was Won were filmed along it.
What is Mobius Arch?
Mobius Arch is a natural granite arch in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California, reached by a short loop trail; it is named for its likeness to a Möbius strip, its window is about 6.5 feet tall, and it frames Mount Whitney, Wikipedia records.
Why are they called the Alabama Hills?
The Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine, California, were named after the CSS Alabama, a Confederate warship, by prospectors who sympathised with the Confederacy, Wikipedia records; after the USS Kearsarge sank the Alabama in 1864, prospectors who sympathised with the Union named a mining district, a mountain pass, a peak and a town after the Kearsarge.
When did the Alabama Hills become a National Scenic Area?
Congress designated 18,610 acres of the Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine, California, as a National Scenic Area on 12 March 2019, in the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, the Bureau of Land Management says.
Do you need a permit to camp in the Alabama Hills?
For the designated semi-primitive campsites, yes: since 1 October 2024 the Bureau of Land Management has required its free Alabama Hills camping permit, valid for a year, which does not guarantee a site; the BLM’s Tuttle Creek Campground, beside the hills near Lone Pine, California, has 83 sites.
When is the Lone Pine Film Festival?
The Lone Pine Film Festival is held each October in Lone Pine, California, with speakers, actors and bus tours to the places in the Alabama Hills where films were shot, the Bureau of Land Management says.