To be honest I didn’t know much about Lone Pine when I booked the RV spot. I knew I wanted someplace remote, which it is, but I also thought we could visit both Death Valley and the Sequoia National Forest from that location. What I didn’t understand was that there is no eastern entrance to the Sequoia National Park from here, but we have beautiful views of the mountains right from the RV park.

I also selected Boulder Creek RV Park kind of randomly, but wow did I get lucky. There are lots of places to camp up here, but this one seems to be the nicest and although it’s on the pricey side I have absolutely beautiful views outside my window. Cell coverage is also really strong, so working for the next three weeks is no problem. They also have a fantastic dog area and the people we have met are super friendly.

The RV park itself is a couple of miles south of the town, which is very western in design. There are several cafes and hunting/fishing stores and a small but well stocked grocery store. The town’s claim to fame is that hundreds and hundreds of movies and TV have been shot here since 1919, and all of the famous western stars have stayed here at one time or another. Lee loves old Westerns so that was really cool, and we can’t wait to visit the Alabama Hills Movie Road which shows exactly where many movies have been shot.

The coolest part of town was the fantastic Museum of Western Film History. This small museum is absolutely packed with movie memorabilia and the $8 entrance fee was an absolute bargain. I even enjoyed the short film they had which talked about movies in the area which gave a great recap of the history.

One of the reasons they have so much memorabilia is because a local rancher built a business supplying the film companies. He provided extras, equipment, cattle, and horses for various films and his personal collection (along with other locals) was donated to the museum. Where else can you see actual clothing worn by famous stars and even I who doesn’t care much about Westerns was blown away.

They had a couple of really great collections as well. There was tons of Lone Ranger memorabilia which was actually donated by Robert Blake who collected them as a kid and another huge collection of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans memorabilia. Some of these I recognized from childhood, others were older than me but they were all well cared for.

The amount of westerns shot here was amazing. Over 100 years, 700 films were shot here. In particular it was a favorite of Randolph Scott and he shot most of his movies here. If you haven’t heard of Randolph Scott he was the John Wayne of his time. Along with him are folks like Tom Mix and really every Western star you could think of shot here at one time or another. If you want something more recent they shot part of Django Unchained here and even had Quentin Tarantino’s director’s chair.

Lee’s favorite area showed stuntmen gear. They had a pristine example of a “jerk vest”, which he had only read about but never seen in person, that was used to pull people in whatever direction needed for gunshots and explosions. There was also a wooden chest plate that was used to shoot people with arrows. It also had a trick arrow that was invented so it looked like an arrow hit someone. That section was pretty cool and included a full sized movie truck that was used to film horse chases. Lee got pretty giddy over that 🙂

Although the filming was mostly for westerns, other movies were shot here as well, with the largest production being Gunga Din. Lee was most excited though to see the car Humphrey Bogart drove in High Sierra, which was the role that catapulted him from character actor to superstar.

Russel Crowe was even in Lone Pine for two days when they shot the scenes of his home in Gladiator.

Lastly the scene in Iron Man when he is in Afghanistan and demopnstrating a new weapon was shot here and the movie Tremors. Although things have slowed down since the Golden Age of westerns the Alabama Hills are still an amazing backdrop.

Last but not least they had a great gift shop where I picked up a cool Lone Pine magnet. I can’t wait to drive up to Alabama Hills on Movie Road and further explore the area. Even though I am working I took a couple of half days and we are here for three weeks so we should get to see most of the things we want to.

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