Lone Pine to Yosemite, better options?

First and foremost, great website! I'm in the final preparations of my JMT thru-hike, leaving on September 3rd. Travel to and from, during my initial research, seemed pretty straight forward but I seemed to have hit a snag. YARTS only runs on weekends from Mammoth to Yosemite during September which throws a major monkey wrench in my planning. It seems as if there is no good way to get from Lone Pine to Yosemite? It looks as if I would have to take Eastern Sierra Transit to Reno, then take a bus or train to Merced followed by YARTS to Yosemite? This requires multiple buses and train connections and a very long time! Does anyone have any better options? Thanks, Jeff P.S. Was planning on dropping my car off in Lone Pine.