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/