John Muir Trail - Abbreviated Version

            June 27 – June 30 – The John Muir Trail – abbreviated version. I thought I was ready for this; I thought I would be on the trail for 220 miles. I was wrong. Perhaps, as my friend Rhonda says, realizing our limits is wisdom. I found mine in those first three days on the trail – the only three days.

            I began by catching the bus early on Friday morning, June 27, from Lone Pine to Mammoth Lakes. I stored my electronics with the local climbing and hiking store, Elevation, parked my car at the Chamber of Commerce, and walked the few blocks to McDonalds to catch the bus. There were three guys, two together and a third one, who had just come off the trail and were heading back to various destinations to continue with their regular lives. All three were young, in their 20s and 30s, and the two that were together had only taken 12 days to make the hike. The third one, Chris, had taken a little longer. All had lots of advice and information, and I enjoyed talking with them on the bus ride. Once we got to Mammoth, we went our separate ways – the two continued on to Lee Vining, and Chris was meeting up with some people in Mammoth to surf their couch.

The Pack

            I went across the street and found a campsite at the closest campground, set up camp and dumped my pack. I decided to use the McDonalds to charge my phone and my power pack, and when I walked in, I saw Chris doing the same thing. It was my first trail magic of the trip, meeting with Chris like that. We ended up talking for two hours, exchanging Facebook information, and found we had a lot of common interests. Chris has just finished seminary and was getting ready to head his first Methodist congregation back East. We talked of books and spiritual teachers, and we found we both began our spiritual quests with Richard Bach’s books. Who says tattoos aren’t useful? We began that conversation when he asked what the seagull tattoo meant on my leg.

            After Chris and I went our own ways, I wandered around Mammoth the rest of the day, having a great Ruben sandwich at the local café, and shopping for some anti-friction balm to put on my healing blisters. I never found the balm, but I did manage to visit all the outfitters and sporting good stores in town, meeting some interesting people. I felt good about the coming hike, and I felt strong. The blisters were a little bothersome, but not too much of a worry. Returning to the campsite, I took a walk around and met a guy who was sitting on his picnic table, reading a book. I noticed trekking poles leaning against a tree, no car in the parking spot, and he had that look of a hiker. I said hello and we talked for a while. He, his brother, and a friend from Ohio had been hiking some of the JMT, and were heading off to Moab for a little hiking at Arches the next day. We talked a while of hiking books and trails we knew before I headed back to bed down for the night.

Up the slope, ready for the steps

            June 28 – I got up early, broke camp, and went back across the street to McDonalds to catch the bus to Yosemite Valley. There I saw my friend from the night before, and he helped me select some podcasts to download onto my phone. Once we loaded onto the bus, we went our separate ways, and I spent the hours on the bus contemplating the miles before me.

First look at the falls. I'll climb above them

            I felt a little off physically that morning on the bus. My stomach hurt a bit and I had a headache. I decided it must be nerves, so I tried to ignore it. When we stopped at Tuolomne Meadows, the first stop in Yosemite, I looked out the windows at the PCT hikers resupply and socializing at the picnic tables set up for that purpose. This is hiker’s land, the Sierra Nevada, and no matter where you are, you see unwashed, weary, and raggedy souls, carrying heavy packs with a look of distance in their eyes – distances traveled already and those to come. It’s easy to romanticize through-hikers, as those long distance hikers are called. They are romantic figures. Who but a romantic would set aside six months of his or her life to hike from Mexico to Canada? And it was that romance I was chasing on my shorter through-hike.

            But it’s not all storytelling and stargazing. It’s hard work, loneliness, and commitment. And I was about to find out first hand just how difficult those things are to navigate.

            I left the bus in Yosemite Valley and picked up my permit at the ranger station. After receiving the instructions and regulations and a potty-pack for Mount Whitney (you have to carry out your poop there), I stopped to pick up a sandwich for lunch and dinner, a reserve water bottle, and some headphones. There was a part of me that was putting off the inevitable start of the hike I think – I needed those things, but I didn’t mind having to try three stores to get them. I knew once I started, there was no turning back.

Mist Trail. Or as I like to call it - Hell

            By the time I actually hit the trail, it was 2:30. One of the instructions from the ranger was that I had to hike past the Half Dome trailhead before I could camp. That was six and a half miles away, but I figured if I averaged a mile an hour, which is really slow, even for me, I would be okay – if cutting it close a bit – with dusk hitting about 8:30. I had no idea that a mile an hour was extremely optimistic and, as it turned out, unrealistic.

            Chris and some others had suggested I take the Mist Trail and Nevada Falls Trail instead of the technical JMT out of the Valley. I wanted to hike the waterfalls, so I decided I would follow their suggestions. It also was about a mile and a third shorter that way, if steeper. I know now that shorter means nothing when the trail is as steep as those two trails are. I have never climbed so far and so steeply in my life. Even climbing out of the Grand Canyon was not this physically demanding. The trail began with simply an uphill slope until it reached the actual Mist Trail, just over a mile in. When I started up the Mist Trail, I realized there was no more slope to be navigated. It was steps. Some wider and some narrower, some shorter and some taller, but all raggedy, rough, rock steps. When I finally reached the top of the trail, which is the top of Vernal Falls, I barely had the energy to go to the railing and look over the falls. I stopped and ate a little of my sandwich and tried to mentally prepare for the second climb, up to the top of Nevada Falls.

            This second climb was worse. The steps were higher, the drop-offs closer and more precarious, and the trail harder to follow. I passed people coming down as I neared the top, and I wondered how they could possibly make it down before dark. Because it was getting late. By the time I reached the top of the two trails, which totaled about three and a half miles, It was almost 7 p.m. I knew I had three more miles to go, and even at two miles an hour, I was looking at finishing in the dark. What I didn’t realize at that point, is that two miles an hour was optimistic. With the pack, and another thousand feet to climb, it was again a slow, pausing hike.

 

            I realized my water was about out in my pack – I hadn’t filled it completely to save weight – so I stopped at the Merced River to filter some more into the pack. I was dismayed to realize, as I tried squeezing the water through the filter, that it wasn’t working. Fortunately I had my reserve half-liter, so after a few minutes of trying, and feeling the encroaching darkness, I pulled a Scarlet O’Hara and decided to think about it in the morning. I did have drops in my pack for just such an emergency, but I didn’t want to use them.

            Getting back on the trail, two men, appearing to be in their early thirties, came up behind me. We hiked together for about a half hour until we arrived at their campground in Little Yosemite Valley. I was really wishing I could camp there, and they suggested I break the rules and do so, but I knew I needed to push on, not wanting to violate the wilderness rules the first night. (A little later I decided I just might violate some of those rules, but fortunately I didn’t have to after all.)  I need to say something here about these two young men. They were beautiful. One, in fact, looked so much like Ben Affleck, I asked their names to see if his was Ben. They were kind and beautiful and strong, and somehow that strength rubbed off on me. At one point we were talking about pack weight and when I said mine was almost 40 pounds, Ben (actually his name was William) said I must be well over the suggested percentage for my weight. I really was right in the ball park, but it still felt like a compliment. I still think it might have been Ben Affleck or his stunt double – after all, when I asked them where they were from, they said Los Angeles.

Finally close to the top of Nevada Falls (that's the trail coming up from the bottom right)

            Sorry to leave them behind, I continued on to Cloud’s Rest Trailhead, where I hoped to find a place to camp. Although the hike with my LA buddies was flat and easy hiking, I shortly came to another climb. The hike from the valley to Cloud’s rest was all uphill. And it was getting dark – in fact, the last mile and a half I hiked in the dark. I encountered one couple coming down with headlamps on too, and they weren’t sure how much farther I had to go. I thought, as I picked my way by the light of my headlight over roots and rocks, of bears and mountain lions and all sorts of critters that might be just out of my circle of light, but mostly I wondered how in the world I would find a campsite 100 feet from the trail, which is the minimum distance a person is supposed to be from the trail. How I would see a campsite was a mystery to me. I decided I would make it to Cloud’s Rest and if I had to, set up next to the trail, regardless of the regulations.

            When I finally almost reached the junction, I saw another headlamp coming toward me. He called out, “I’m a ranger,” and I just about ran to him and hugged him. I answered, “Am I glad to see you!” and then asked how I could find a campsite. He said he and another ranger were camped right there, and I could throw my tent up in their campsite. I have never been happier to meet a stranger than I was at that moment.

            It turned out he, Josh, and the other ranger, Jess, were both in their early twenties and were summer volunteer rangers. They were stationed up at Cloud’s Rest because of a troublesome bear who kept bothering campers. They had actually chased same bear from the campsite where I would be staying three times already that evening. I didn’t care. I had a place to sleep, I could quit walking, and I had company. And when I told them about my filter, they offered to filter and fill both my water containers in the morning before we parted ways. Trail angels are what these “coincidences” are called, and I was happy to find a few my first night. 

            No bears visited that night, and I slept well. When I got up in the morning, I visited with Josh and Jess while they broke camp, and I broke camp myself and prepared for the day’s hiking, covering my blisters with first Band-Aids and then duct tape. I set out thinking the day would be much easier than the first, and some of it was. But some of it was just as difficult.

Early in the day, ran across this doe. She wasn't afraid at all

            June 29 – The climb during the first part of the day was fairly gradual, so I felt a little more comfortable than I had the previous day. However, my legs were sore, and my gluts ached like they never had before. It’s quite a shock to the body when you have to pick up right where you left off the day before with little rest and no recovery time. I’m sure anyone who’s humped a pack in the military will agree, but I wasn’t expecting the difficulty of the cumulative exertion.

Lunch time

            I knew the day would be a little more than seven miles, and I’ve hiked that a number of times, even with a pack. But this second day of hiking was harder than I remembered it being in the past. I texted my friend Jesse at lunch as I sat on a boulder and looked out over a magnificent vista, telling him I didn’t remember it being this hard to carry a 40-pound pack. He and I crossed the Grand Canyon together carrying heavy packs, so I knew he would understand. He gave me good advice as usual, reminding me to pace myself. The second thing he said really caught my attention: “Remember, you’re on vacation.”

 

            I thought of this as I struggled on, putting miles slowly behind me. The biggest shock of the day came at about four and a half miles in. The trail again began to climb, and this time, it wasn’t gradual. I found myself pausing every few switchbacks to allow my heart rate to return to normal and to rest my pack. I learned to find rocks that had a slight incline, so as I rested my ass on it, my pack would sit just above me, taking the weight off my hips and shoulders. I ran into a few people coming down after I’d been at it for a while, and both informed me I still had a long way to go.

 

            The second hiker, who was himself resting, waiting for his friend who was struggling terribly coming down behind him, was a young man in his twenties. He was appropriately apologetic when he told me I still had a way to go (the hiker before was not, in my opinion) and reminded me to take my time, drink a lot of water and eat a lot of carbs. I hadn’t eaten much that day – it’s so hard to make myself eat when I’m struggling like that; I feel too tired to even chew. But I told him I would, and braced myself for more of this climbing. Pausing often, I slowly made my way to the top and began a little downward hiking.

            The relief at finally going downhill was immense, but it was still slow going and I was looking forward getting to my campsite for the night at the Sunrise High Sierra Camp. I had been to another High Sierra Camp, the Glen Aulin, and I knew they didn’t allow hikers to use their nice facilities, but I also knew they had pump water (no struggling with the filter) and a little store from which I could buy some lemonade and sit on a chair. And their backpacker’s campground was nice with easy-to-find campsites.

            Just before getting to the camp, I ran into a few other hikers who were looking for it. Just as we approached it, a guy who was already bedded down for the night came down from the campground and pointed us in the direction of the open campsites. I asked about the store and the water, and he told me the vault toilets were open, but nothing else was open for the season yet. I tried not to be too disappointed, and I figured I would have the time to work on my filter or use my drops before I took off in the morning. Once I found a site, I pulled out my stove to cook a good portion of chili mac to fuel my depleted muscles.

 

            What I had been told by another hiker, but didn’t realize would be so miserable, were the swarming mosquitos at the campground. I, fortunately, had brought a head net, so I slipped it on and worked on my filter and dinner with the net keeping the bugs from my face. My 100% DEET did a fairly good job at keeping them from attacking my arms and legs too much, and I quickly changed into my long underwear and long-sleeved Smartwool top. But once I’d gotten the filter to work on a liter of water, and once my dinner was cooked, I zipped myself into the tent and ate. I only emerged once more to dispose of my trash in a bear-safe way and use the fancy toilet, then quickly returned to the protection of my tent.

 

            As I lay there in my tent, waiting to go to sleep, I realized I was having no fun at all. Jesse’s words came back to me – I was on vacation. I weighed the pleasure/pain ratio, and I realized the pain far outweighed any pleasure I was experiencing. If I had another person along, if we could debrief at the end of the day, look for a campsite together, perform the chores of closing out a day and being ready to start another the next, the balance would shift and it would be worth it. But I was alone and had no one with whom to share the experiences, good or hard. And all I could think of was the next day I had to get up and do it all again. And then the next day, and the next. The idea of stringing together six of seven days of this without a day off and ultimately a month of it was almost unbearable.  I made a decision lying there. I would come off trail at Tuolomne Meadows at the end of the next day.

            June 30 – I began the day by fighting with my filter again, but I was able to get it working a little better and add a little more than two liters in my pack. I still had to wear the net – the mosquitos were apparently just as hungry in the morning as they had been at night. And although the night was chilly, the day dawned warm and quickly warmed even more. By the time I was on the trail at 8:30, the sun was hot and I was sweating. But I felt happier that the day held mostly level terrain and some downhill into Tuolomne, even though my little book on the hike said I would climb for a while over Cathedral Pass. When I read that, I wasn’t happy. As I looked closely at the elevation profile, I saw I would be climbing to almost 10,000 feet as I crossed the pass, and I wasn’t happy about that either.

            But there’s no way to get to the end without going through it, so I trudged on. I had about a mile of level hiking before I began going up, so that was a relief. And this first meadow I crossed was beautiful. The forest I entered at the edge of the meadow was, as every step I’d taken, breathtakingly beautiful too. Even the rocks and roots that spotted the trail have a lovely asymmetry to them.

            The pass was spectacular. I could look out across to the spires and peaks of the Sierra for hours at a time, and it was a wonderful place to rest for a bit. There were a few other hikers there taking advantage of the view and the pause in the climb, and we chatted a bit before moving on. Fortunately, I was finally headed down to Tuolomne, and the hike became much less painful. I came to Cathedral Lakes, one of the more popular day-hiking destinations from Tuolomne, and the hiking population picked up as those day-hikers were coming to the lake. Unfortunately, I was in such a state of exhaustion by that point, I didn’t even pause to take pictures of the lake, an omission I regret now.

Cathedral Pass

            I encountered a young woman while we were on the downhill, Lucy, or Mountain Spring, her trail name, and we visited for a while as I sat on a rock, catching my breath. She had begun her hike in April at the Mexican border, and she and a group of about six had pulled off the PCT to add in hiking up from Yosemite Valley to Tuolomne. As if their hike wasn’t long enough. I felt a bit better when she said those 20 miles I’d been hiking were the most demanding she’d encountered in the 900 miles she’d hiked so far. I don’t know how much of that was simply making an older, tired woman feel better, but it worked regardless. I told her I’d look for her at Tuolomne, and I watched the back of her as she carried her pack seemingly effortlessly down the trail in front of me.

Cathedral Pass

            Another hiker, coming from Tuolomne, said there was a shuttle at the trailhead to take hikers that last mile down the road to the store. I was thrilled to hear that, and I felt a new burst of energy as I knew I was reaching the end of the trail. I kept telling myself, those last miles, that I needed to change my attitude from experiencing the hike as an ordeal to an adventure, but try as I might, I still couldn’t wait to be finished.

            I did catch that shuttle, and stepping up into that air-conditioned bus just about brought me to tears. I was hot and sweaty and exhausted, and to sit in that cool air on a soft seat was just a little bit of heaven. The ride could have gone on a lot longer than it did, but soon I was stepping out into civilization. I first went to the post office and picked up my resupply box. I told them I would be stopping at this point, and they offered to forward it home for no charge, so I accepted. By making that move, I solidified my decision to step off the trail.

            I ate fruit, a hamburger, and a big dish of ice cream – hitting all the major food groups – sat under some trees at the picnic tables, and visited with a couple who were also at my table. Sarah and Rob were from Wisconsin and traveled each summer like I do, simply heading a direction and seeing what appears. They gave me some great ideas to see in Oregon, including a clothing-optional hot springs at a spiritual retreat center. It’s on my list now, and you’ll probably be reading about it in a few weeks. I also ran into Lucy again, and we sat together the rest of the evening. I had planned on catching the 6:40 bus to Mammoth Lakes that evening, but the woman working at the store told me it didn’t start running daily until the next day. I had forgotten it was still June.

            After a few minutes of disappointment, I regrouped and planned to catch the bus at 8:20 in the morning, after a quick breakfast. So I trudged back to the backpacker’s campground with Lucy and set up my little backpacking tent one last night. I didn’t sleep well – it had been five days since I’d had a proper shower and my legs and arms were so sticky I found it impossible to get comfortable.

            And the next morning, I was headed back to my car and a new agenda for the summer.