John Muir Trail is ON!

I've been dreaming about this hike for 2 years and its about to become a reality, 2 weeks before I had even anticipated!

Andrea and I got a permit (via the Yosemite lottery back in February) to start the 220+ mile John Muir Trail on July 28th. However, I was just offered a great job that wants me to start as soon as possible, so we're heading out to California at the end of next week to start the JMT. Once we get to Yosemite, we'll attempt to get a walk-up permit. It might take a day or two, but hanging out in Yosemite for an extra few days isn't the worst thing in the world!

Right now we are in full-on preparation mode. I anticipated having a few more weeks to prepare, but now the timeline has been accelerated. We're dehydrating food, re-packaging meals, organizing gear, etc. Prepping for a hike of this scale is pretty much a full time job.

Leaving earlier is going to present one major environmental challenge: snow. This was a big snow year in the Sierras, so we'll need to bring some sort of foot traction (probably microspikes) to deal with all the snow. Since it will also slow our pace a bit, we plan to mail a resupply bucket of food to the Muir Trail Ranch (~Mile #107)... that way we'll only have to carry about 6 days worth of food at the most.

Next week I'm planning to do a series of blog posts on the gear / clothes we are taking and the food we are packing... along with a post on our planned itinerary.

We're no longer going to try and finish the Colorado 14ers this year... the John Muir Trail has been my dream for a while, and over the past year its become my dream to do this hike with Andrea. Preparation is a lot of work, but I know its going to be worth it a million times over!

That's all for now... lots of hiking / training / organizing to do this weekend. Happy 4th of July!!!



The route


Elevation Profile