Day 3- Fishing and a Town Day

Thursday, June 19

"JMTers are just wannabe PCTers."

Beginning: Cathedral Lake (Mile 18)
Ending: Lyell Canyon (Mile 30)
Daily recorded distance: 13.3 miles
Total recorded distance: 38.1 miles
Daily recorded elevation gain: 876 feet
Total recorded elevation gain: 10,328 feet

    In the words of one hiker we met on the trail today's hike "restored our faith in our ability to walk." The legs were tired from the brutal climbs of the last two days, but today's trails were smooth with very little climbing. For the first four miles, there were not many big views, but we had a nice easy downhill through the forest until the trail broke out on Tuolumne Meadow. Highway 120, the only road that goes east and west through Yosemite, goes right through Tuolumne Meadows so there were lots of tourists visiting. Despite the blacktop and tourists, Tuolumne Meadow was a highlight because the Tuolumne River is one of the prime fly fishing destinations of the Sierras. Two men walking beside the highway were fascinated by the browns and brookies I was pulling out of the river. They also could not believer I would hike thirty miles only to fish right beside the highway. The weather was perfect; the fishing was a lot of fun; but finally it was time to move on.

    At the Tuolumne store and grill, we got our first taste of through hiker culture. Laden with caesar chicken wraps, drinks, and ice cream, Bryson and Casey looked like kids in a candy store. They were chatting it up with a group of PCTers seated around the front of the store. Up to this point we could possibly have felt kind of big about hiking over two hundred miles in a couple of weeks. To the day hikers from Yosemite Valley and backpackers doing short loops within Yosemite, hiking all the way to Mt. Whitney looked like a huge undertaking. Not so for these hikers. These trail-hardened PCTers had already hiked over nine hundred miles, seven hundred of which had been through dry, shadeless desert. They had plenty of harrowing tales to tell about crossing icy, snow-covered passes far to the south which we would also have to pass someday.

    At the Tuolumne wilderness center, some of us picked up our first resupply. Bryson, Shane, and I had decided to cache some food in the bear boxes so we could reduce the amount of weight we would have to carry out of the Valley. Casey, who had started with a full six day's worth of food, would have to wait a few more days before restocking his own portable pantry.

Lyell Canyon

    Lyell Canyon is a dream. I can't believer I had never heard of Lyell Canyon before this trip. It really is one of the most beautiful places you can find, and it's not even that hard to get to. The trail into the canyon starts at the Tuolumne Meadows Wilderness Center, which is right beside Highway 120. From there, a nearly flat four miles will get you far enough into the canyon to appreciate its splendor. Most of the hikers we saw were northbound PCTers intent on reaching the Tuolumne Grill before they ran out of hamburgers which I'm afraid were a terrible distraction from the beauty of the canyon. Besides through hikers, we saw three other groups. One was a family of five who had hiked in to fish for the day. Another was an old man with a tattered backpack and a walking stick. (He might have been the ghost of John Muir himself.) And the other was a solo fisherman camped four or five miles up the canyon. Really, I can't describe the meadows, forest, rivers, and peaks to you. If you only visit two places in Yosemite, drive through Yosemite Valley and then hike in Lyell Canyon.

    That evening, we found a nice campsite beside a small creek that feeds into the Tuolumne. Bryson, Casey, and I fished the creek and the main river, catching several brook trout and a few browns. One elusive giant of a trout evaded every fly and spinner that Bryson or I could throw at him. Someday, I will figure out how to catch him. It was here that we began experimenting with the best way to cook a trout while on the trail. I found that six to eight inch trout fried on a small backpacking stove with a little butter and Tony's seasoning make the perfect supper.

Tuolumne Meadows

Lyell Canyon

Day 2- Cathedral Pass and Mosquitoes

 Wednesday, June 18

Beginning: Sunrise Creek (Mile 8)
Ending: Cathedral Lake (Mile 18)
Daily recorded distance: 11 miles
Total recorded distance: 24.8 miles
Daily recorded elevation gain: 3,389 feet
Total recorded elevation gain: 9,452 feet

    "The road to success goes past many great parking spots."

    Today started with an easy hike through scrub brush and charred pine stumps. At times, we had views of the Clark Range to the south. Other times we were scrambling over dead trees beside Sunrise Creek. It was here that we met our first southbound JMTer. Tonton, who was hiking solo when we met him, had started northbound with a buddy, but the snow on the passes had sketched him out enough that he got off the trail. He was now hiking southbound in hopes that the snow would be off the southern passes by the time he got there. Although we were prepared to deal with some snow, we shared his hopes. We also met a few PCTers on a side trip to Yosemite Valley. Most PCTers share several characteristics: they walk fast; the have a Garmin Inreach on their right shoulder strap; they wear long sleeves; their packs are smaller than ours; the men have big beards; the women almost always have double braids.

    Another group known to us as "Julie and her boyfriend" started calling Shane Weed Man after the company logo on his dark green long sleeve shirt. The trail name stuck, and some of us began feeling compelled to tell people that, "No, Weed Man does not work in a dispensary."

    Eventually the trail left the burn scar and began a grueling climb through a thick pine forest. On legs tired from yesterday's climb out of Yosemite Valley, this 1,400 foot climb was much harder than we expected. The climb finally topped out at the top of a tree covered ridge so we had lunch in the shade before descending a gentle slope to Long Meadow, home of the Sunrise High Sierra Camp.

    I can't describe every meadow, mountain, lake, or vista that we see on this hike. Each one is unique and beautiful, but my descriptions would be redundant and uninteresting. Sunrise Meadow is a large, verdant meadow surrounded by thick pine forest. A granite dome sits on one edge of the meadow, and a few snow-capped peaks rise in the distance.

    The mosquitoes were very friendly. For the all of the first and second days, we used every mosquito prevention tactic we knew to avoid becoming over acquainted including Permethrin treated clothing, head nets, long sleeves, and bug repellent. This is where I recommend the use of Picaridin lotion over Deet based bug sprays. It is much less greasy, and it does not stain gear. Bug nets that go over the hat are a must, and Permethrin treated long sleeves seemed to help.

    Following Long Meadow was a short scenic climb to the top of Cathedral Pass. We quickly made the descent to Cathedral Lake where we set up camp at the base of Cathedral Peak. I can't describe Cathedral Peak to you, but it is truly an awesome sight, rising imposingly above the basin. Cathedral Lake is a pretty lake surrounded by marshy grasslands on the east, snow-covered slopes to the north and west and pine forest to the south. There were several other groups camped around the lake, most of whom were out for short backpacking trips. Our friend Tonton was camped nearby, and he seemed to enjoy Bryson's fishing stories.

    The fish in this lake seem to prefer size to quantity. I only saw two fish. One was a fifteen inch brook trout in Bryson's frying pan, and the other was a similarly sized trout darting out of the pool I was trying to fish. It just goes to show that when chasing brookies, one must take his time and do it right.

Cathedral Peak as seen from Cathedral Lake

The track for Day 2 is in yellow.

I'm not sure what's up with that really steep face around mile five. The trail was steep, but it was never that steep.

Day 1- Half Dome

 Tuesday, June 17

Beginning: Happy Isles Trailhead (Mile 0)
Ending: Sunrise Creek (Mile 8)
Recorded distance: 13.8 miles
Recorded elevation gain: 6,063 feet

    "We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are had, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills." John F. Kennedy

    On the way to the trailhead,  we breakfasted at Happy Burger Diner in Mariposa, one of the few restaurants that has burgers at 6:00 in the morning. After we at four big burgers and a ton of fries, we continued to the trailhead in Yosemite Valley. Starting on the trail at 8:00, we were too late to start with the Half Dome day hikers, but too early to be in the hoardes of sightseeing tourists.

The Sign
    If you think you should hike the JMT, but you're not sure, this could be your sign. For years I have followed this sign to some of the grandest sights in the world: Nevada Fall, Vernal Fall, Half Dome, or Cloud's Rest. Rarely have I passed the sign without thinking, hearing, or saying, "Mt. Whitney 211 miles, here we come." Today it is finally happening.

    A short distance past the sign, the trail forks in two different directions. The Mist Trail follows the Merced River to Vernal and Nevada Falls. In a big snow year, Vernal Fall will shower the trail with a chilly mist, sometimes causing the trail to look more like a creek than a trail. After climbing the large granite stairs to the top of Vernal, the trail flattens out before crossing the Merced River, passing the sight of the old La Casa Nevada, and climbing the switchbacks to Nevada Fall.

La Casa Nevada
    In 1870, Albert and Emily snow blazed a horse trail from the Mist Trail to Clark's Point and built a hotel "in the mist of Nevada Fall." They ran the famous bed and breakfast for almost twenty years before selling it and retiring. Emily liked to joke that there was eleven feet of snow there all summer long. To her guests' confused looks, she would reply that she was five feet and her husband was six, making eleven feet of Snow. After they sold the hotel, a Mr. Baxter ran it for three more years before it finally closed in 1891. In 1900 most of the building was destroyed by a fire, and the remaining wood became fire wood for passing campers over the years. Today nothing remains of the hotel but a flat clearing in the forest.

    This section of the John Muir Trail, colloquially known to the locals as the "horse" trail, leaves the Mist Trail to take a longer but less steep route to the top of Nevada Fall. This route offers distant views an Upper Yosemite Fall and a close up look at Nevada Fall. Both routes are spectacular, but we all decided to take the John Muir Trail.

    Bryson and Casey's strong pace put them at the front of the group most of the day. I lagged behind, and Shane was way behind me. Leaving the realm of the casual day hiker behind at Nevada Fall, we continued on to Little Yosemite Valley where the Merced River flows peacefully along beside sandy beaches. Unfortunately, we had spent so much time at the top of Nevada Fall that we did not have enough time to fish this section of river. Almost everyone we meet for the rest of the day, will either be day hikers on their way down from Half Dome or backpackers planning to the spend the night Little Yosemite Valley's backpacker campground. Our own permits require that we camp at least one mile beyond Little Yosemite so we carried our packs another two miles up the JMT to the junction of the Half Dome trail. There we dropped our packs and continued on, carrying just enough water to stay hydrated while we made the grueling climb to the top of Half Dome.

Half Dome
    Can you even think of Yosemite without wanting to climb Half Dome? The last tenth of a mile is so steep that the National Park Service has strung up cables to help hikers haul themselves up the mountain. Someone who is scared of heights will definitely be nervous while desperately clutching a thin metal cable  at the top of a three hundred foot drop. Thankfully, none of us fell this time, and the views from the top were worth it.

    We originally planned to camp two and a half miles past the Half Dome junction to set us up for a side hike to Cloud's Rest the next day, but most of us were too worn out by this time to even think about Cloud's Rest. We cut our hike a little short and ended up camping in a really nice spot on the edge of the burn scar from the 2014 Meadow Fire. Had we continued with our original plan, we would have ended up in a barren, burnt landscape. As it was, we camped atop a small hill just out of view of the trail. Standing among the blackened stumps were several mature pine trees that had survived the fire and lots of vigorous young trees well on their way to regrowing the forest.

Meadow Fire

    In July of 2014, a lightning strike started a fire to the south of the Merced River. The fire crossed the river and eventually burned 4,971 acres between the river and Cloud's Rest. In September, high winds caused the fire to unexpectedly rage out of control and dozens of people had to be evacuated by helicopter from the top of Half Dome. By the end of September, firefighters and rainfall succeeded in extinguishing the fire. This area is a perfect example of how a forest can rebound after a natural forest fire.

    Sunrise Creek was a short walk down the hill from our camp, but the fallen trees and ferns made it difficult to access water. Although my expectations for the fishing were low, I could not resist drifting a fly through several enticing pools. As expected, I never did see an actual fish.

    

    We had excellent views of some of Yosemite's most famous granite features. The backside of Half Dome and clear view of the cables was straight west, and the false summit of Cloud's Rest was almost straight north. Moraine Dome was just across Sunrise Creek to the southeast. To the south and a little west was Mount Starr King, and in the distant southwest was Sentinel Dome.

La Casa Nevada

Half Dome cables

View of the Meadow Fire from Glacier Point

The track for Day 1 is in blue.

Day 0- Planning, Packing, and Permits

Monday, June 16

Twenty day’s worth of food for three people is a lot of food. In an effort to avoid food burnout and the high price of freeze dried meals, I have been putting together bags of dried meals for all of my meals as well as the breakfasts and suppers for two other people.

    Last Friday, Waylen and I hiked a bunch of food into Muir Trail Ranch. They offered to store our food until we are ready to pick it up halfway through our hike.We had a four hour drive from home to Lake Florence before starting the nine mile hike around the lake the lake and back to the ranch. It wasn't a steep hike, but by the end of the day, we had hiked over twenty miles. When we arrived at the ranch, the employees were quite surprised to see us even though I had emailed the ranch a couple days earlier. They were still in the early stages of setting up the ranch for another season, but they were able to direct us to some intact five gallon buckets which we filled to the brim with hiker food. Once the buckets were labeled with our names and expected pick up date, we stashed them in the resupply store along with dozens of other buckets to be picked up by fellow JMT hikers.

    Shortly before reaching the ranch, we had run into an old mountain man who goes by Mr. Ross. Because he "was really smart when he was young and chose really good parents," he had inherited a forty acre section in the middle of the John Muir Wilderness. After graduating from high school in 1965, he had spent a season as a forest ranger along the John Muir Trail. He talked for at least thirty minutes, but his main message was "let the people into the wilderness, and let them enjoy it." In his mind, goals like "leave the wilderness the way it was in 1491" have no place on the forest service's agenda. When he heard that we were planning to hike the JMT, he said, "Good. Tell everyone about what you see on your hike, and invite them to come see it."

    This morning, Bryson, Shane, and I made a trip to Yosemite to drop off some food at Tuolumne Meadows and pick up our wilderness permits. Having never been in California before, Bryson was interested in seeing as much of Yosemite as he could. A "peak-hours reservation" is required to enter Yosemite between 6:00 AM and 2:00 PM, but we were quickly allowed to enter when the ranger looked up proof of our wilderness permit. At the Tuolumne Wilderness, the ranger who gave us our permits laid all the important Leave No Trace principals: food and scented items must be kept in a bear canister, camp at least one hundred feet from water sources, do not use soap in lakes or streams, bury all human waste at least six inches deep one hundred feet from water sources, pack out all your toilet paper, camp only in previously impacted areas, etc. We dutifully agreed with all his requests. Outside the ranger station, we found a long row of bear resistant boxes where we stashed a supply of food in hopes of finding it undisturbed on the third day of our hike. This reduced the amount of weight we had to carry out of Yosemite Valley by about six pounds.

    We then drove out the eastern side of Yosemite to have lunch in Lee Vining. After lunch, we took Bryson to Glacier Point and Mariposa Grove to see some of the giant sequoias. By the end of the day, we had driven to just about every part of Yosemite National Park besides Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite Valley.

Track for the hike to MTR is in blue. The JMT is marked by the shields on the right side of the map.
Distance: 21.1 miles
Elevation gain: 2,812 feet

View from Glacier Point

The Plan

Casey Koehn, Shane Groff, Bryson Jon Coblentz, and I are planning to start a thru-hike of the John Muir Trail starting on June 17. All are from Livingston, except Bryson, who is from Southern Ohio. We plan to resupply four times: Tuolumne Meadows (Mile 24), Red's Meadow (Mile 60), Muir Trail Ranch (Mile 106), and Taboose Pass (Mile 158). Waylen Koehn (also from Livingston) will join around June 25 at Muir Trail Ranch, which is halfway between Happy Isles and Mt. Whitney. Dad will hike a resupply over Taboose Pass and join us for the last few days of the trip. We should finish the hike on July 4.

    Hiking southbound, we should have plenty of time to acclimate higher altitude before hitting the twelve thousand foot passes later in the hike. In the first half of the trip, we will climb three 11,000' passes, but most of our time will be spent around nine thousand feet. After the halfway point, we will climb five 12,000' passes before summiting Whitney (14,496') on our final day. Our eighteen day itinerary calls for ten to fifteen miles of hiking every day without any rest days. We will also be climbing two to four thousand feet most days. At this point, I have no idea if we will find this to be too slow or too fast. Bryson and I did a hike last March where we covered forty-two miles in three days so I think we will be able to keep up with our itinerary.

    Knowing how much food to pack is another challenge. In Yosemite, King's Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks, we are required to keep all food in an approved bear proof container. The BV500, which is a 9" by 13" cylinder, seems to be the best canister available for a long through hike. Because of the size limitation of the canister and our high caloric expenditure, I was quite concerned about packing enough food to provide the necessary energy but keeping it compact enough to fit six day's worth of food in the canister. Helpfully, many online sources recommended packing around three thousand calories per day so I used that as a starting point. Many people use freeze-dried meals for such trips, but I find these pose three problems: they are expensive, the packaging they come in is bulky and does not pack well, and they often cause gastrointestinal distress. I chose to put together some recipes that have been put together by Andrew Skurka, an experienced backpacking guide. For breakfast, I mixed three and a half ounces of granola with half an ounce of Muscle Milk protein powder and half an ounce of powdered milk. Love Crunch Double Chocolate Chunk granola mix made a delicious breakfast. For suppers, I will use beans and rice, peanut noodles, and cheesy potatoes. Beans and rice consists of dehydrated refried beans, instant rice, cheese, taco seasoning, and chili cheese Fritos. Although I know it makes a delicious supper on the trail, I am a little concerned about the gastrointestinal issues commonly associated with ingesting too much fiber. Peanut noodles is a regular Ramen noodles plus a peanut butter based sauce that adds flavor, fat, and protein. This one seems to be quite easy on the gut and may end up making a good lunch if I want to fire up the stove along the trail someday. Cheesy potatoes is nothing more than instant mashed potatoes mixed with cheese, bacon bits, freeze dried green chiles (or green chile powder), butter, and a touch of nutritional yeast. Non-backpacking onlookers have turned up their noses at the soupy green mess, but please don't down it until you have tried it yourself. It is simply delicious.

    In addition to my main meals, I also plan to pack Nature Valley granola bars, fruit leather, Paydays, hickory smoked tuna packets, nuts, Tootsie Rolls, and Trollie gummy worms. Hopefully, this will be enough calories to keep me going and enough variety to keep me interested in eating.

    I cannot write in detail about the other guys' food plans, but I know Casey is taking lots of Ramen; Shane has enough Siracha and mayonnaise to eat several packets a day, and Bryson is taking several packages of raisins and M&M's. I hope they don't get burnt out on their food after a week.