John Muir Trail, September 2009 - Trip Report, part 1 of 4

It is still dark as we make our way over to Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley for the start of our trek down the John Muir Trail. There are a handful of others up at this early hour, most likely heading up Half Dome in a day. We stop for the required picture at the trail sign showing that Mt. Whitney is 211 miles away, and we are off.


Six good college friends came together for this trip, and how lucky I am to have friends like these! We all used to race bikes together in college, and our periodic gatherings have always held some very physical element to them. Previously being teammates will be critical as we have the ambitious goal of hiking the entire John Muir Trail in 8 days.

Starting from Yosemite Valley the Muir Trail inevitably goes up! The day before, we were able to drop a car at Whitney Portal, and 4 of our backpacks in Tuolumne Meadows. The goal was to leave all 6 backpacks and a car in Tuolumne, however due to a large wildfire this was not possible.


So between the six of us, we divided the weight of the remaining two packs, and were out for essentially a day hike to Tuolumne Measdows. One friend, Mike, had the foresight to call ahead to the Sunrise High Sierra camp and order us 6 fresh turkey sandwiches with all the fixings for lunch. After 14 miles and a little over 5,000 feet of elevation gain these hit the spot!


We continued over Cathedral Pass and down to Tuolumne Meadows, where we ate again, this time at the Tuolumne Grill. On an endeavor such as this, calories are king! We would all be eating in excess of 4,000 a day, and topping up with a bacon double cheeseburger was just what my body needed.


After picking up our backpacks, we continued on from Tuolumne Meadows for another 3 hours into the evening, eventually stopping at the junction to Evelyn Lakes. Lyell Canyon is notorious for bear encounters, and I was secretly hoping that we would get to see a bear that night. Alas, with the food safely stored in bear canisters, we had no visitors that night, at least that I was aware of.


When we awoke in the morning, the temperatures were in the upper 30’s. Most of us had lightweight 30 degree down bags, which when combined with long underwear and a healthy dinner were just about right at these temperatures. For dinners we brought dehydrated meals and two Jetboil stoves. We supplemented these meals with cous cous and olive oil to bring them to around 1,000 calories per person. These were big meals, but the quality of sleep and amount of physical recovery were so much better. From bike racing days, we all knew firsthand the perils of skipping dinner and falling into our bags after a long day.

After a quick breakfast and packing up, we headed out with the goal of Red’s Meadow by night. Packing up was a fairly easy endeavor as we were wearing almost all of our clothes, and we really didn’t bring that much other gear. See my earlier blog post for a look at what made the final list.


Today’s section of trail is one I love. Thousand Island Lake with Mt. Banner looming above has always been a quintessential High Sierra image for me. The trails were in better condition than those in Yosemite National Park. We had intentionally planned this trip for late summer with a mid week start, so the trails were very uncrowded. We lunched at Thousand Island Lake, and even got in a quick swim before the afternoon clouds rolled in.

In covering this much ground, our “trick” was to keep moving. We were not exceptionally fast, rather we generally tended to stay in motion. We would take shorter breaks every 2 – 3 hours, and then usually sit for up to an hour for lunch.


Unfortunately on this day, one friend needed to get home for a family emergency. We ended up hiking out to Agnews Meadow to get the friend to a shuttle bus to Mammoth Lakes. We were able to take another shuttle the 6 or 7 miles to Red’s Meadow that evening, where we enjoyed hot spring fed showers and a good nights sleep, but we were all a little thrown off at losing one of our teammates that day.

Click here for Part 2, Red’s Meadow to Muir Trail Ranch.