June 21-30, 2014 - Giant Forest to Junction Meadow, then Horse Corral Meadow

Backpack Trip: Giant Forest to Junction Meadow, then Horse Corral Meadow
Proposed Itinerary
June 21-30, 2014

I am still working on trying to figure out getting this down to 8 days instead of 10 days.
May 21, 2014 - The mileages are approximate and I am still verifying.

Day	Date	Destination	Description	Miles	Elev Gain	End Elev
0		Giant Forest	Starting point. Previous night in Fresno	0	0	6760'
1	06/21/14	Buck Creek		10.5	1,720'	7200'
2	06/22/14	Hamilton Lake	May be able to Nine Lakes Basin, about two miles farther and other Kaweah Gap	5	1475'	8235'
3	06/23/14	Big Arroyo Trail Jct		5.7	2460'	9600'
4	06/24/14	Moraine Lake		8.3	995'	9290'
5	06/25/14	Kern Hot Springs		8.7	202'	6922'
6	06/26/14	Junction Meadow		6.3	1114'	8036'
7	06/27/14	Kern-Kaweah River		6	2280'	10170'
8	06/28/14	Colby Lake	May be going further down Cloud Canyon	4.7	1830'	10584'
9	06/29/14	Scaffold Meadows		11.3	0'	7400'
10	06/30/14	Horse Correll Mdw		14.5	2320'	7650'

References:

• Starr's Guide to the John Muir Trail – Has a section on going across the High Sierra Trail
• Miguel Vieira's High Sierra Trail preperation site
• NPS High Sierra Trail site
• Examiner Article

JMT-2013: SPOT E-Mail

Dear Friends and Family,

Sherri and Gary are trying to walk the John Muir Trail again this year--starting Tuesday morning, June 25th. Last year the Trail got the better of us. So we are off again to complete our walk. For those of you who do not know, the John Muir Trail (JMT)  is 211 miles,  from Yosemite Valley-we are starting at Glacier Point--to Mt Whitney.  We anticipate it will take us about three weeks—maybe a few days longer depending on how many rest days we include. Some of you have said they would like to follow us. Here's how:

• Each day after we set up camp, we will send out a message through our Personal Locater Beacon (SPOT Messenger).
• It will appear on a map, which you can see at bit.ly/mapritto1 (if that does not work, try clicking on this link.). The link should be updated each night by about 7 or 8 .
• A map should appear in your browser, when you click it. You will see our locations from the past 5-7 days. Take a look at the map below for an example.

• 

  SPOT Map-Corrected from Original e-mail

  Most messages will say, we are OK. But if you see a “Custom” message, we are probably on a day hike, or communicating with our support team.
• If a campsite does not appear for a day or two, do not panic, we may not have been able to transmit. If we are in trouble, we will have set of
  f an alarm for our support crew to help us out.

For those of you who want to know more, here is a little more detail. We own a SPOT Messenger GPS. It uses satellite communications to transmit messages and coordinates. There is a limited number of message types which can be sent—see the list below. It's most important function is if we are in a terrible fix, to alert a national rescue center to find us. But its more common use is to let people know where we are and to help them follow us or to coordinate with our support team. Sherri's and Gary's support team consists of Gary's brother and our children. The SPOT has five buttons, which we mostly use the first one:

• “I am OK”,
• “Custom Messages”-which we use to say we are on a day hike,
• “Help”-to coordinate with our support team,
• “Tracks”-leaves a set of tracks on the map showing where we have been, and
• “SOS”-notifies the national rescue center.

Finally, for those of you who cannot get your fill of us, there are two blogs of our summer travels which you might be interested in. They will not be updated until we get back:

• Gary's Summer Trips Blog:  http://gary-summer.blogspot.com/
• Capture California, a summer photo scavenger hunt Sherri and I are playing:  http://capturecalif.blogspot.com/
  

JMT Planned Campspots

Day	JMT Camp	Site	Description	Total Miles	Day Miles	Altitude Gain	Altitude Lost	Est Hours Travel	Restock	Close Trailhead
0		Glacier Point	Beginning	0.0	0.0	0	0	0	Initial	Glacier Point
1		Illilouette Ck or Sunrise Ck	Depends on what permit says	4	4	0	70	2.2		Happy Isles
2	1.12	Sunrise Creek or Sunrise Mdw	Good uphill	13.4	9.4	2900	509	7.4		Happy Isles
3	2.01	Tuolume Mdws	Cathedral Pass. Backpacker or regular campsite	26.8	13.4	1721	1514	8.5	Steven	Tuolumne
4	2.06	Upper Lyell Cyn	At the end of Lyell Canyon, after your first climb, at a creek crossing.	34.6	7.8	1786	651	5.5		Tuolumne
5	4.01	Island Pass	Donahue Pass, Island Pass. If I remember right, there was a nice pond and some trees on this gentle pass	43.3	8.7	2373	1693	7.2		Silver Lake
6	4.13	Trinity Lakes	While Johnson Mdw has a lot of good camping places, there has been pesky insects there each time.	55.1	11.8	2143	2803	8.9		Red's Meadow
7	5.01	Crater Creek	Stop in Red's Meadow for lunch. Long uphill afterwards	67.6	12.5	1966	2466	8.9		Red's Meadow
8	5.12	Squaw Lake or Fish Creek	May stop before this and spread out to next day.	84.4	16.8	2961	2127	11.7		Edison
9	6.05	Edison Lake	Silver Pass. Lay over day?	92.5	8.1	526	3134	5.8	Drop	Edison
10	6.08	Bear Ck (9080')	After stopping at Edison	99.8	7.3	2539	1149	6.4		Edison
11	7.07	San Joaquin River	Sheldon Pass. May need to backtrack a little	113.7	13.9	1701	2969	9.5		Florence
12	7.24	Evolution Lake	Will probably stop about 2 miles before the Lake	125	11.3	3000	0	8.1		Piute Creek
13	8.09	Middle Fork of Kings	Muir Pass	139.1	14.1	1000	3242	6.4		Piute Creek
14	8.3	Palisade Lake		151.9	12.8	2789	661	8.9		Piute Creek
15	9.09	Marjorie Lake	Mather Pass	162.1	10.2	2502	2789	8.5		Cedar Grove
16	10.08	Dollar Lake	Pinchot Pass. Just before Rae Lakes	174.9	12.8	2446	3316	9.9		Cedar Grove
17	11.03	Jct w/Bullfrog	Glenn Pass	182.6	7.7	1729	1243	5.9		Kersarge Pass
18	11.06	Virdette Meadows		184.1	1.5	0		1.5	Steven	Roads End
19	11.2	Before Forester	Long uphill	190.5	6.4	2500		5.4		Road End
20	12.02	Tyndale Creek	Forester Pass, Little lake by junction	197.4	6.9	997	3034	5.7		Shepherd Pass
21	12.19	Guitar Lake		209	11.6	1793	1446	7.8		Whitney Portal
22		Whitney Portal	Mt Whitney	224.1	15.1	2894	6081	12.8		Whitney Portal

We will probably lose a day around Day 12-16.

Lay Over Days:

Days 4-9:   1 Day

Days 10-18: 2 Days, but which may be used if targets are not met.