August 5th to 15th, 2019
Half Dome (8,840')
Mount Whitney (14,498')
Mount Muir (14,012')
Day 0 - To Sunrise: 6.8 miles, 4,000'
Day 1 - Half Dome, To Cathedral: 16.86 miles, 5,500'
Day 2 - To Rush Creek: 22.64 miles, 3,200'
Day 3 - Reds Meadow, To Red Cones: 24 miles, 4,000'
Day 4 - To Silver Pass: 19.8 miles, 4,900'
Day 5 - To Seldon Pass: 21.5 miles, 4,200'
Day 6 - MTR, To Evolution: 19.8 miles, 2,700'
Day 7 - To Le Conte: 21.55 miles, 3,000'
Day 8 - To Pinochot: 18 miles, 5,300'
Day 9 - To Glen: 19.71 miles, 5,000'
Day 10 - To Crabtree: 21 miles, 4,700'
Day 11 - Whitney, Muir, To Portal - 20.74 miles, 4,900'
Total: 232 miles, 51,400'
Total: 232 miles, 51,400'
Back in May due to a variety of issues expounded on elsewhere I quit my job and went about seeing just how much trouble of an outdoor variety I could realistically get up to when not tied to a desk during the week. While still gainfully employed I had committed to a number of weekend backpacks for the Sierra Club Wilderness Travel Course but even sticking with those I ended up with a few tantalizingly long periods here and there that were just begging for the longer sort of a trips I always had to say no to. And hell, if I wasn't going to go big then I might as well still be working right?
The John Muir Trail is a well known 220 ish mile wilderness trail stretching from Yosemite Valley in the north and Mount Whitney in the south. I'd attempted it once before in 2013 setting an aggressive 25 mile a day pace that had been proven...challenging. And painful to the point I practically had PTSD about the whole experience for years after. And after all of that thanks to an early winter storm I'd had to exit at Kearsarge Pass instead of over Mount Whitney.
So while I'd seen *most* of the trail I'd had it on my list to go back at some point and do it propper. And seeing as how my girlfriend Jen had never done it and that as a teacher she has summers off plans started to solidify around a 12 day plan in early August which would mean a reasonable 20 mile a day average. And in the end we did it in 11! With side trips to Half Dome, Whitney, and Mount Muir thrown in for good measure. And far less pain and trauma. But a whole hell of a lot more mosquitos.
- Posted By: Matthew Hengst
- 0 Comments
