I'm a bit lost on transport for the JMT this year. I'll have a car to drop off at Whitney Portal on 6/29.

I can then, from what I hear, hitchhike to Lone Pine relatively easily. Then there is a CREST bus leaving at 6:15 a.m. getting to the McDonalds in Mammoth at 8:20, but only on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. So I'd need to be IN Lone Pine by 6:15a.m.. I doubt I could drive into Whitney Portal at 4a.m. and get a weird super early morning hitch. It might pay off to plan to hitch during the day, spend the night in Lone Pine, then get the next days bus. I'd need to either wait until 7/1 (Monday) to get the bus, or leave a day ahead of plan to take the 6/29 bus.

Then I'd need to take the YART at 8a.m. getting to Yosemite Valley at 12:05.

The other option is Lee Vinings leaving at the same time as the original CREST, 6:15a.m., getting in at 8:50am, then taking the YART at 10:20 to get to Tuolumne Visitor's Center at 11:10, then ........ be in Yosemite Valley


So my questions are:

How do I get from Tuolumne to Yosemite Valley? I can only seem to find the once daily YART but I feel that can't be the only way. Maybe I should be counting on starting in Tuolumne if it'll be a big pain in the bum.

When in Lee Vinings, where does CREST drop you? Lake View Lodge? Mono Basin Visitor Center? Tioga Mobil Gas Mart?

How much can one expect to pay for a shuttle between Whitney Portal and Yosemite? One price I found was $500, wayyy too high for me.

Can I sleep in Yosemite same day without a permit (and so no backpackers camp)? I'm waiting for the next day to be at the permit office before it opens, sadly.

Any other options or recommendations?

assuming all your bus schedule info is correct, I'd say your best bet is to try and drop the car at the Portal on Thursday, June 28, then hitch hike down to Lone Pine Thursday afternoon.
There is a cheap hostel in town somewhere.
once in Yosemite Valley, at 12:15, you'll have time to figure things out for the next day.
there is a backpacker campsite in the Valley, you need to have a backpacking permit, but I managed to stay there once without someone checking me.
there are also frequent campsite reservation cancellations, you might luck out.

I'm assuming you do NOT have a JMT permit, and plan to stand in line ... get there early.

Park in Lone Pine...some motels will let you (if you stay there).

Bus to Yosemite.

Hitch to Lone Pine at the end of your hike when timing isn't so critical.

Start at tm and head to Whitney. Hitch or bus your way back to tm, we used both. Drive down to the valley. Take hikers bus up to tm and day hike down. This is how my son and I worked around the jmt permit issue. It's a lot easier to get a permit from tm than the valley. The transport also was pretty easy. If you are like most you will summit Whitney early in the morning. Then you can hit the portal in the early afternoon as folks are heading back to lone pine. You will have to get the bus schedule. We were able to hit the bus after two hitches in independence and the bus took us to mammoth. We had a pretty easy time with the last two hitches to get to tm.