This post is part three of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear.
As some of you know, Keith and I will be hiking the John Muir Trail (JMT) this year, and for those of you who didn’t know, now you do. Lucky you. While I’ve been speaking to people about this a handful of similar questions have been coming up mostly regarding our schedule and planning process, our gear, and what our food and resupply strategy is. So I’ll be posting three articles in the weeks before our trip in an attempt to answer your questions and just generally clarify what is required to spend three weeks in the middle of nowhere.
The first thing you need to know, dear reader is that the John Muir Trail is a 211 mile hiking and equestrian trail that runs from the summit of Mount Whitney to Yosemite Valley (plus 9ish miles to get to/from the top of Whitney). The typical season for hiking the JMT is late June through mid September, and people usually complete the trail in about two to four weeks.
The second thing you need to know is that getting a permit for the JMT (especially if you want to do the entire trail and aren’t psyched about skipping sections) is really a pain in the ass. This is largely because of the trail’s increasing popularity. This year a record-breaking snow year compounded the problem by reducing the JMT window even further as Yosemite valley wasn’t even open until late June.
The permit system for the JMT opens 24 weeks or 168 days in advance of when you actually want to go. So while everybody was thinking about cute scarfs, and wearing knee-high boots and all the other fun stuff you do in January, Keith and I were frantically trying to get permits for a trail we wouldn’t even hike for close to half a year!
Some people wait years to get the right permit for the JMT, only content to hike it south bound from the northern terminus at Happy Isles in the heart of Yosemite. Other people who don’t have time for that kind of shit, rig together a crazy permit like some sort of Frankenstien’s monster of trail systems and just say fuck it.
I’m going to let you guess what group Keith and I fall into.
Yep, we’re the second group. So we’ll be departing from Horseshoe Meadows and heading over Cottonwood Pass, adding 17 miles and two days to our JMT hike because ain’t nobody got time to wait until the fates of the Eastern Sierra Permit System or the Yosemite nordic gods to shine down upon us in 1 to a billion years time. The plan is to cover roughly 237 miles in 17 days, with one zero (no hiking day) at Vermillion Valley Resort where we’ll pick up our resupply of food and bug spray and sunscreen, because the JMT is actually so remote that there are only a few options to get more food on the trail, and all of them involve mailing yourself a box of snacks. We’ll finish in Yosemite Valley on September 9th or 10th.
So why, you might ask, would a reasonably sane person such as yourself want to deal with the headaches of the permit system just to get the chance to hike for more than 200 miles in the middle of nowhere, where you can’t even stop into a CVS to pick up snacks?!?! To which I would say: clearly you don’t know me, because if you did you would never use the phrase ‘reasonably sane’ and my name in the same sentence, especially not where hiking and snacks are concerned. Also, because the JMT is known to traverse some of the most beautiful terrain in the Sierra Nevada range – which some people (mostly Keith) argue is the best mountain range in the lower 48. If you need more evidence, take a peek at these images that I blatantly stole from the internet:
It’s gosh darn majestic y’all!
Keep an eye out for my next two posts on the JMT where I’ll be talking about gear, and our food.