Sunday, July 21, 2013

John Muir Trail, 2013

John Muir Trail - 2013
From June 25, 2013 through July 19, 2013

Starting: Glacier Point, Yosemite
Ending:   Whitney Portal, Inyo National Forest

Sherri and Gary Duran traveled 220 miles in 24 days from Yosemite National Park, through the Inyo and Sierra National Forests, finally arriving at Sequoia and Kings Canyon Nation Parks. This is Sherri's second time making this trek; my first time as a thru-hiker.

As I put in my log, something which strikes me is how we matured as hikers during this time. What was hard at the start, became easy later on; the impossible was all in a days walk. How true this is. When start walking, any climb is hard; as we continue to walk even Whitney is a walk in the park--maybe without sufficient oxygen though.

Along the way, we would see amazingly deep valleys, the highest peaks in the continental United States, blue lakes and raging streams. We would have bright sunny days, passes covered by clouds, rained and hailed upon, hear thunder and seen lightening, experienced heat. But in all of this, we had the enjoyable experience of meeting people from all over the state, the country and the world.

These people included many whom I think will be folks whom we keep in touch with. They include, and hopefully I do not missed anyone:


  • Instigator, No-Dae and Rehab, PCTer's on the way to Yosemite Valley for some R&R
  • Night Crawler, a PCTer, and her father who was resupplying her
  • Cliff, the first of the back-country rangers
  • Nicole, from Los Angeles who was on the verge of being a logistics consultant. She made it to Whitney a few days before us. We hiked with her for about a week.
  • Fritz, and eventually his wife Ethel. We hiked with Fritz for several days and then they housed us at Edison.
  • The honeymoon couple, who later on stopped in at an REI store and met our daughter
  • Jim, a programmer at UCSC
  • Julie and her young son from Chicago, hiking the JMT, whom we may not have met the next friends
  • Rachel and Ray, who knew our daughter from college. We hiked with them for a week. What a pleasure.
  • Beth a second year teacher from Oakland
  • Larry and Paul from Green Bay, whom we hiked with for a week and saw coming down Whitney
  • John B from Fresno. He brought the movie Mile...Mile and half to Fresno. He is also part of our hiking group.
  • George, Chris and Steve from Minneapolis. We hiked with them for several days
As you can see, the JMT is not just a bunch of solo hikers, but a moving community. Such an enjoyable experience.

Our journal is given by each day. Most mileages came from our GPS. But some, where the GPS was not accurate, we took from Elizabeth Wenk's book(see below).  If there is a picture you would like to see, click on it. Most of them will grow to fill the screen.

Many people have gone before us on this trek. Their experience is something which we value. A book, which we carried on our iPad, was Elizabeth Wenk's John Muir Trail, The essential guide to hiking America's most famous trail. It is an essential guide and one which we recommend reading and paying attention to.

Also after we hiked the JMT, we saw a movie called Mile...Mile and a Half in Clovis. It was a special showing. The movie documents a group of photographers doing the JMT in 2011. While it will not win any Oscars, for those who have experienced the JMT, it was fun reliving the trail. You can see the trailer for it on Vimeo. There may buy a copy of the entire film on YouTube for $4.

We recently saw another video, which aired on PBS in 2012. It is called High Sierra - A Journey on the John Muir Trail. It is a 58 minute documentary about five high school students who hike with a photographer/videographer on the John Muir Trail, north to south. Yosemite ranger Shelton Johnson also is a major part of the video. They took 18 days to complete the trail, faster than Sherri and Gary did it in. The video was produced by Cirque Productions by Peter Bell. In Gary's opinion, the photography was better than Mile, Mile and Half. But the music was better in the former and seemed a bit more cohesive as a story. They also have a web site with the trailer.

One of the benefits of this kind of a walk is for those who are overweight like me is the ability to lose weight. On this trip, I was able to lose 14 pounds.

Another benefit, is that many days we learned lessons. The lessons, some days  were specific to our situation. But most of them will carry over into real life. You can find the lessons at the end of each day.

Abbreviations:
  • JMT - John Muir Trail
  • PCT - Pacific Crest Trail
  • VVR - Vermillion Valley Resort at Edison Lake
  • JMR - John Muir Ranch
  • NPS - National Park Service
  • NFS - National Forest Service
  • DDG - Drop Dead Gorgeous, usually when we are looking at a view
  • JDV - Jaw Dropping View


 



Date
Campsite
Miles
Walked
Elevation
Gained
Max
Elevation

June 25, 2013

 Sunrise Creek 10.57 2,969 7,865 First day, starting from Glacier Point, a bit cloudy, but truly glorious.
June 26, 2013

 Long Meadow 7.33 2,250 9,757 Steep uphill, but starting to get into the higher elevations.
June 27, 2013

 Cathedral Area and Tuolume Meadows 9.25 1,168 10,082 Nice uphill to Cathedral Pass, then all down to Tuolumne
June 28, 2013 Pond at 10,185' 10.6 1,506 10,185 Hike up Lyell Canyon, with some side entertainment at our pond.
June 29, 2013 Island Pass 6.7 1,440 11,060 We meet Nicole and go over Donohue Pass and get to watch a really nice sunset.
June 30, 2013 Trinity Lakes 11.5 1,772 10,180 We go pretty good today; meet a newly married couple; fight off mosquitoes.
July 1, 2013 Deer Creek 10.9 1,673 9,514 Go through Devil's PostPile and meet Fritz
July 2, 2013 Virgina Lake 9.9 2,089 10,499 Gary becomes inventive; it rains today; and find a really beautiful place.

July 3, 2013		 Pocket Meadow 10.51 1,869 10,900
Hiking down from Lake Virginia into Tully Hole. Then our rainy and thundery climb up Silver Pass, followed by a long descent towards Edison lake.

July 4, 2013
Edison Lake		 3.71 121 8,683 A short hike, plenty to eat and meeting up with Trail friends. Also, we suffer through a day of rest

July 5, 2013
Bear Creek		 10.0 2,580 9,888
First day carrying a really heavy pack. But made up for it by walking along Bear Creek and making friends with Ray and Rachel.
July 6, 2013 San Joaquin River 11.3 1,120 10,890 Climbed up Seldon Pass, but first enjoyed Marie lake. Our campsite was not as enjoyable as usual.

July 7, 2013		 Colby Meadow 11.6 2,540 9,850 We meet with our trail friends-Nicole, and camp with  Rachel and Ray in Evolution Valley. What a sight!
July 8, 2013 Sapphire Lake 5.1 1,186 10,966 Short day's hike, but big day for scenery. Great views of Evolution Valley.
July 9, 2013 Le Conte Ranger Station 11.1 1,058 11,960 A pretty long hike up Muir Pass and Hut. We meet Larry and Paul here.
July 10, 2013 Lower Palisades Lake 10.3 2,546 10,615 What a killer of a day. You go up a valley and what meets you at the end? The Golden Staircase.
July 11, 2013 Bench Lake Ranger  Station 10.3 1,825 12,100 Great views throughout the day and a long walk down Mather Pass
July 12, 2013 Woods Creek Crossing 10.3 1,350 12,130 A bit of a trudge up Pinchot and a longer one down to Woods Creek.
July 13, 2013 Upper Rae Lakes 6.8 2,053 10,600 Relaxing day, even with a 2,000' climb. This may be the best of the JMT.
July 14, 2013 Bubbs Creek 9.3 2,420 11,960 We leave Rae Lakes behind and go over Glen Pass down into Bubbs Creek area.
July 15, 2013 Tyndall Frog Ponds 9.8 2,706 13,100 It is a long trek up to Forester and a long trek down. But the views relieve the trudge.
July 16, 2013 Guitar Lake 10.8 1,575 11,559 We are looking forward to tomorrow and going out over Whitney. So today is putting us into position to do just that.
July 17, 2013 Trail Camp 9.2 3,336 14,506 We made it to the top-that is to Mt Whitney and completed the JMT. But a surprise awaited us there.
July 18, 2013 Whitney Portal 6.3 147 11,810 Final hike of the JMT. Good to see Steven again.
July 19, 2013 Lone Pine Lake 6.37 2,208 10,110 Day Hike back up to Lone Pine Lake to meet up with Andrea. But needed a second try

Our total walking was 223.2 miles, Wenk's books legs the hike as 218.6 from Yosemite Valley to Whitney Portal. Total ascent was 43,299'-Wenk says about 46,000'. The differences can be explained somewhat with just discrepancies in our instrumentation and our "cheats". Our "average day was 9.3 miles with an ascent of 1,800'. Of course behind that average our days ranged from 3.7 to 11.6 miles and 121' to 3,336'. But it is not the miles or the climb but the enjoyment. That still remains with us.


References:
For those of you who might be interested in hiking the JMT, here are some references which you can consult:

Cheating:
A couple of places where we "cheated" a bit, or in some places, enhanced the experienced of walking the JMT:
  • Glacier Point. We started at Glacier Point in Yosemite. The official starting place is Happy Isles on the Yosemite Valley floor. In May there was a rock slide above Vernal Falls, blocking part of the JMT. NPS cleared up the trail, but Sherri and Gary started thinking that they had done the hike out of Happy Isles several times. Why not try starting someplace else which we had not done before?
    • A Note: After watching Mile...Mile and a Half, it looks like they started at the same place as we did. Maybe we did not cheat too badly here.
  • Lee Vining. Steven, our son, picked us up at Tuolumne Meadows. Rather than camping overnight there, we slept in a hotel room and had dinner at the Woe Nellie Dei. Delicious.
  • Tuolumne Meadows. Steven picked us up on June 27th at the Tuolumne Meadows Wilderness Office. There is a mile of the JMT which runs beside the road down to the lodge. It is gravel and not very interesting. We had Steven drop us off, close to the lodge, losing that mile stretch.

  • Devil's Postpile. There is a section, maybe about 3-4 miles of trail which runs along the western edge of the Devil's Postpile before entering into Red's Meadow. This section bears the brunt of the sun, whether morning or afternoon. Plus the trail runs through a burnt out section of forest on pumice rock. Not very pleasant walking. Also you only get to see the Postpile from a distance. So we decided to cut through the Postpile, in the shade and enjoy the sight of the Postpile. Much better, 
    • Mile...Mile and half also shows scenes from this section of the trail we went on.
  • Bear Ridge. We stayed at Edison Lake's Vermillion Valley Resort on July 4th. In coming across, we saw that we had to walk between  three-quarters to a mile of lake bed to reach the ferry. Rather than do that, we had our new friend Fritz drop us off at the Bear Ridge trailhead. This trail puts us at a point about 3 to 4 miles up the JMT at 9,888' elevation. We travel about 5 miles up the trail. So the distance is the same or better, so is the climb. It is just a little bit more gradual.


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