John Muir Trail Hike 2014 - First Leg

Instead of going on vacation by simply ignoring our email and watching a Mythbusters marathon while eating ice cream, we devised a plan to go climb over some very tall and rugged mountains for our time off this summer with a couple of friends from undergrad.  Some of the time spent there was awesome and some was merely adventurous. This series of entries will document our time on the John Muir Trail through the Sierra Nevada mountains.  It should be noted this was not a through-hike - we did about a third of the miles of the overall trail in a few different sections, along with some additional miles getting to and from the main trail.  The complete picture set (including some taken by our friends) can be seen on Flickr.

Getting to the trail proved to be more challenging than expected.  We made the plane about two minutes before the door closed after waiting forever in the parking lot for a shuttle and having the check-in agent be perplexed by our luggage for some reason.  A person directly behind us on the plane claimed descent from at least one prominent Biblical figure and spent the entire flight discussing the relationship between the Bible and current events in Israel with the credulous lady next to him, thankfully I (Lee) slept through most of it (Ana was not as lucky).  After arriving in San Francisco, our driver (we hired a shuttle service to get to Yosemite) was two hours late.  Traffic outside the city slowed us down further, such that we arrived too late to pick up our backcountry permit that day. The drive in was our first introduction to the strange terrain we'd be spending the next several days in. The golden, rolling hills were very new and different for us as no member of our party had spent any meaningful amount of time in California outside of the cities.

We arrived in Yosemite, the part we were in wasn't on fire (though we could smell the smoke from the fires 10-15 miles away) and we had really plush accommodations, pictured below.  We ate a real dinner, bought gas canisters (can't fly with them) and Ana found me a replacement fleece for the one I'd accidentally left on the floor of the living room after taking it out to wear on the plane but not actually putting it on.

The problem with not getting the wilderness permit the day before was that our bus to the trailhead was scheduled to leave at 8:20 and the office to get wilderness permits only opens at 8:00AM.  Also, the place to get the permit is at least half a mile away from where the bus stops (the map shows almost a mile but I am certain it is less).  The plan we devised put the other three members of the party at the bus stop, while I (Lee - my name was on the reservation) went to the office to try to make it happen.  Since I was picking up a reserved permit instead of waiting in line for a new permit (they issue a very limited number of walk-in permits per day and people line up pre-dawn for them) I talked my way to the front of the line and waited.  They didn't even open the doors to the station until 8:05, and they really weren't interested in hurrying.  I suspect that I could have been more polite to the ranger, but they finally started the wheels turning and I got the first permit of the day around 8:19.  I ran (in hiking boots, through the smoke from the fires) and made the bus stop around 8:24 where thankfully a large group of confused tourist-grade hikers had delayed the departure of the bus.  We clearly squeaked by here.

 An area previously burned, with smoke in the background from one of the current fires (taken from the bus)

 Arriving at our stop, we walked a bit and took pictures at this lake shortly before the trailhead

As the Sierra Nevadas have substantial altitude, it is recommended to adapt to the air a bit before engaging with serious hiking.  Overnighting in Yosemite was a good start, but for the first day we had scheduled around 7 miles of hiking over fairly low, gentle terrain.  We definitely noted the effects of altitude when going uphill - flats and downs we could walk normally but uphill was more difficult than usual.  We had no real problems though, and made our highly scenic Glen Aulin campsite with plenty of light left, leading to a leisurely dinner and time to dip our toes in the river.

 View from the bridge across the river in front of the campsite

 The waterfall in front of the camping area 

The next morning it was a little gray-er but still dry and we started hiking.

 We encountered our first horse and mule trains - most of the trails are open to use with horses.

 This is the kind of natural beauty where we're not actually on a mountain.  This will become less common the further in the trip we go.

 After picking up a food drop and getting lunch (we crossed a road and you don't miss a chance to eat real food on the trail, even on the second day) we walked down this river valley and eventually picked a campsite.  It was steadily overcast and eventually started misting, but we didn't get too wet.

 Was cool enough that we put on some thermal layers under the rain coats.  I used the replacement fleece from Yosemite pretty much every day.

The next morning we hit the trail again and encountered loose horses, which we detoured around.

Also a pretty nice waterfall across the valley.

We also encountered the first real 'up' of the trip, across Donahue Pass.  We met some Boy Scouts coming down from the other side and got mixed reactions from them.  The Boy Scouts themselves were singing "1500 Bottles of Pop on the Wall" and were down to 67 bottles, so they seemed in good spirits.  The Troop Leader told us that we'd never make the pass today as it was too difficult.  Since we were planning to camp well beyond the pass and the mileage was pretty reasonable I did not pay him too much heed.

 Nice view of the river in the valley from above

It started raining (pretty moderate, not a soaking rain) and we needed to cross streams of varying sizes.

Some of which were in the trail and clearly existed only when it was raining.

The high lakes close to the pass were pretty otherworldly in the rain and fog.

 We summited Donahue Pass and started back down around 1PM.  So much for the Scout leader's prediction!

We had patches of clearer sky but the puddles in the trail slowed us considerably as we tried to avoid them without damaging the surrounding vegetation.  We were losing time going downhill.  We pushed through into the evening and eventually camped at Thousand Island lake, which was very pretty but also fairly cold and windy.  Ana was not feeling well, probably due to altitude sicknesses, and couldn't keep food down.  While both Ana and I had dry feet, both our friends had opted for lighter-weight boots and their wet feet had blistered somewhat, so we were feeling a little less cocky at this point.

View from Thousand Island Pass of Thousand Island Lake

The next morning we started off early with the goal of getting back to civilization in case Ana's altitude sickness didn't abate.  We needed to do 17-18 miles, but fortunately it was no longer raining and the terrain was not particularly challenging.  Ana got an altitude remedy from some older hippie ladies that allegedly used the active ingredient in coca leaves but it didn't seem to do anything (I suspect it was a fake / placebo anyway, as the real thing would probably be fairly illegal and not sold in stores).

The sun actually came out in the afternoon.  As the day went on Ana's altitude sickness abated but the blisters of our friends got worse.

We saw Devil's Postpile, which is apparently an internationally famous geological formation.

Bad signage took us on a ~1 mile detour right at the end of the day past this burned-out area.  Every single hiker we asked about the signage in this area made the same mistake we made - the arrow clearly pointed down the incorrect path.  Would have been a nice view if we didn't have the extra walk because of it.

Still, we made the last bus into town with about 7-8 minutes to spare.

And got some real food.  Ana ended up eating that night but she'd walked about 30 miles over two days between eating solid food.

We also saw a bear on the steps of the hotel that night, the only sighting of the entire trip.

More hiking adventure to come in the next entry.  As previously mentioned, the entire set of pictures is available on Flickr.