Gary-Summer: John Muir Trail 2016

Thursday, August 11, 2016

John Muir Trail 2016

John Muir Trail 2016 (Attempted)
From August 7 through ~~September 5th~~, August 10th 2016

Starting: Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park
Ending: Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park

A Half Dome Morning

I will start out this entry with the question: if you do not achieve your objective, have you failed? In this regard, our group's objective was to hike the John Muir Trail over a 28 day period. Four of us left the Trail after four days, another left it after hiking 22 days at Independence. One is left to complete this quest. On the surface it looks like a failure.

But on another level, it is not success nor failure which counts. But it is the effort, the companionship, the growth, adventure experience and memories which says this is a trip I will treasure.

Please bear with me, just another paragraph or two or three of blathering. The biggest thought which I had about coming off the trail was why am I OK with this? Why am I feeling good about it? I was not hurt, exhausted, tired or anything else which would be normal for an aborted hike. I was enjoying the walk, even though it was hard, the people, and the scenery.

And yet, there was a bit of a hollow feeling, not of something unfilled, but of thinking there should be something else there. In case there is a mistake about the feeling, I am not an empty yourself of feeling, emotion type of person. But I hike and backpack to experience God's creation, absorbing what it has to offer. But I think that Sherri may have come close to the mark when she thought that maybe that was all we were to experience, particularly since we have done the JMT before. Maybe this was the taste we needed and that was all.

When you look at the lead up time and planning to do this trip, you wonder. On the other hand, two people who had not experiences the Trail were able to do it. Also the people who we were able to help along the way. Maybe that was why it felt OK to come off when we did. For whatever reason, I am content.

Now to the rest of the blog entry for our JMT try.

People
All of the people in our group are part of the Central Valley Hiking Meetup Group. Some, we have hiked with many a time, others a few times. But all have personalities which should provide a degree of tolerance for each others quirks-especially mine.

Gary-that would be me. Sherri and I are the only two of the group who has hiked the JMT.
Sherri-my wife. She arranged all of the meals for us.
Rose-She was the one who originally inspired us all to go on this trail. The rest of us sort of gathered around her.
Sonya-
Kate-
Kim-She is from the Mid-West but has moved all over the world. Since coming to California, she has gotten a love for the Sierra's.

Permits, Preparations and Panic:
When we got our reservations, Kate and Sonya were able to get a complete JMT permit: from Glacier Point, over Donahue Pass to Mt Whitney. Rose got the rest of us two permits: 1) from Glacier Point to Tuolumne Meadows via Illilouette Creek; 2) from the Mono/Parker Pass trail head to Mt Whitney. We should note that we were really have second thoughts about this second segment. Our plans changed to start at Silver Lake and meet the JMT around Rush Creek. We would start our trip on Aug 7th and end Sept 5th.

Our group have been meeting for several months. We covered things like transportation, restocks, equipment, zero days, emergency situations, and whatever else came to our minds.

Over the past several months there has been many considerations. First as Sherri and I got closer to the date, we realized that with the Mom care we had arranged, the Sept 5th date would be cutting it too close. So we opted out to end the trip after Rae Lakes by going to Road's End instead of Whitney. Kim's husband is in the Navy and his schedule ended up that he would be coming back to Fresno just when we left. So Kim will be meeting us at Tuolumne Meadows and then trying to come out before the Sept 5th. Her husband needs to ship out close to that date.

Our journal is given by each day. Mileages came from my Foretex 401 GPS. In my world, all GPS' have a touch of inaccuracies as they need to figure out where they are. So I do filter the results, removing low travel segments, figuring they are static. So my GPS may record something different than others.

Our Trip:

Date	Campsite	Miles Walked	Elevation Gained	Max Elevation
Aug 7, 2016	Illilouette Creek	3.34	286'	7,165'	Started at 4pm and had a long downhill walk
Aug 8, 2016	Little Yosemite Valley	5.61	1,179'	6,844'	Short cuts leads to a long hike
Aug 9, 2016	Upper Sunrise Creek	6.12	2,739'	8,555'	Up and Up and Up
Aug 10, 2016	Tuolumne Meadows	10.71	2,828'	9,932'	Made it to the trail head
	Totals	25.78	7,032'

Our Planning Resources:

Trail Targets - planning spreadsheet to figure out where we should aim for each day on the trail, along with potential zero/nero days
Alternate routes to doing the JMT, if we could not get the JMT permit reservation. Most of this is due to the Donahue Pass quota.
SPOT Instructions. We have a SPOT 2 which has five options. These are the instructions to our support team about what to do if they receive a message.
Food Planning. This was a spreadsheet which we are still developing. We also used other materials.
Equipment List. This is our generic list which we pick and choose what to take, depending on the circumstances.
Last Minute Stuff. Things which we needed to remember to take before we left.

Abbreviations:

JMT - John Muir Trail
PCT - Pacific Crest Trail
NPS - National Park Service
NFS - National Forest Service
DDG - Drop Dead Gorgeous, usually when we are looking at a view
JDV - Jaw Dropping View

Trail Lesson:
These are thoughts and what we have experienced, usually for that day. They are what I have learned. This was started a couple of years ago.