John Muir Trail 2016-2023

PanShiBo

On October 4th, 2023, two of us completed the final unhiked section of the famous 214-mile John Muir Trail (or JMT) in California. Unlike thru-hikers, or section hikers, we traveled through each part and over each of the nine mountain passes twice, once from the south and once from the north. This brought our total distance to 689 kilometers of travel on JMT.

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This is a summary of how we completed the JMT. The distances include approaches and some side trips to the nearest peaks (e.g., Half Dome, Clouds Rest, etc.).

1. Happy Isles - Half Dome turnoff, day hike, 22km (2016)

2. Half Dome turnoff - Cathedral Pass, 4 days of backpacking, 73km, including Half Dome, Clouds Rest and Sunrise (2023 Aug 28-31)

3. Cathedral Pass - Tenaya Lake, day hike, 28km, including Columbia Finger, Echo Peaks, Cathedral (2014)

4. Tenaya Lake - Donohue Pass, 4 days of backpacking, 89km, including Lyell, Donohue, Andrea Lawrence (2022)

5. Donohue Pass - Red's Meadow, 3 days of backpacking, 81km (2023)

6. Red's Meadow - Muir Pass, 9 days of backpacking, 236km (2023)

7. Muir Pass - Kearsarge Pass, 9 days of backpacking, 196km (2023)

8. Kearsarge Pass - Mount Whitney, 6 days of backpacking, 126km (2023)

Total : 851 km, 37 days

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Happy Isles is the starting point of the JMT from the north. The trail is classified as class 1 and goes all the way down south to Mount Whitney, for 344 kilometers. Back in 2016, we didn’t even know what JMT was.

2016-07-15 KM0
Stepping on JMT for the very first time, en route to Half Dome.

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This section, although very short, is often skipped by thru-hikers because it is the steepest with the most elevation gain per kilometer. Instead, many start from further down south at Tuolumne Meadows. But then, it is not exactly a complete JMT thru-hiking.

2016-07-15 KM4
Back in 2016, we didn’t know that we would travel all 344km (twice) from here all the way to Mount Whitney, the highest peak in continental USA.

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2016.07.15 KM4
Vernan fall is one of the three most notable waterfalls along JMT.

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I’m very skeptical about using paper maps outdoors for navigation, but without this one, we would have a difficult time. Vera ordered it from Indigo. It’s not perfectly accurate, but it’s still superb (far better than Gaia/AllTrails) and probably the only information source you need to hike along the JMT. It is also water and tear-proof (tested!). There are 17 maps (all of which we’ve hiked), and this section is on Map 1.

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2016-07-19 KM 5: Nevada Fall, the tallest waterfall (181m!) along JMT

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Topo map of the section. Elevation Gain 1,307m, drop 393m




GPX: here

vera

2016-07-19 KM7 - Merced River, one of the best swimmable waters along JMT.

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2016-07-19 Mt Broderick and Liberty Cap that we just climbed.


2016-08-16 : KM 10
Fork to Half Dome. We've climbed it three times.

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DIstance: 17KM
Elevation Gain: 1,083m
Elevation Loss: 270m
Gaia map here

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This section is only 17 km of actual JMT, yet we spent 4 days (3 nights) and hiked total 72 km, climbing 4 peaks as side trips (not part of actual JMT)

Day 1: Hike in, camp at Sunrise Creek (17km)
Day 2: Hike to Half Dome, hike Cloudsrest on return, stay at same camp (24km)
Day 3: Move to Sunrise High Sierra Camp (8km), hike to Cathedral Pass (13km), climb Sunrise Dome
Day 4: Hike out, climb Sunrise Peak as side trip (11km)

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This section marked the beginning of our “Road Trip 2023”. Due to a family emergency, we missed the entire summer outdoors and gained weight during a stressful two-month period. Thus, the objective of the road trip was to complete the JMT and burn fat. With the JMT, it was unclear whether we could finish it before the first snowfall, and losing weight is always a challenge. Spoiler alert: the snow did fall (twice and heavily), but we managed to complete the JMT and lose weight. On return, with just 8 hours of driving left, our car engine stopped working (due to its old age) so we had to deal with that too. :)

Here is a short summary of our “Road Trip 2023”:

• Duration: Aug 25 - Oct 12 (49 days)
• Driving: 6,386km total, car camps:13, hotels: 7
• Eight Day-Hikes: 147km / 6,287m elevation gain
• 26 nights Backpacking : 605km (actual moving camps), 23,215m elevation gain
• New peaks: 4
• Total foot travel: 753km, elevation gain 29,502m
• US National Parks: 6 (Crater Lake OR, Lassen CA, Yosemite CA, Grand Canyon AZ, Arches UT, Canyonlands UT)
• Weight loss: 5lb each
  

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2023-08-29 KM 10
JMT at the fork to Half Dome.

On this day, we climbed Half Dome and Cloudsrest as side trip.

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2023-08-29 KM11
Half Dome can be seen from JMT, between the fork to Cloudrest and Half Dome. Our backpacker’s permit, allowed us to climb Half Dome on any day when the permit is valid.




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2023-08-29 KM11

Leaving the fork to Clouds Rest en route to Half Dome. Class 1 trail (as it is for all 344 km all down south to Mt. Whitney)

 

 

 

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PanShiBo

2023-08-29 KM12

Getting water at JMT crossing, east of fork to Clouds Rest. On the JMT, good running water is pretty much everywhere. In the end, we were filling only 0.5L until the next creek, which was almost always around. There are a few areas with no running water along ~5 miles (max), and those are marked on the paper map. Even then, walking 5 miles without drinking is no big deal if you hydrated well before. We never used water baladders on the move to save time on filling, but it was convenient to keep a filled one inside the tent to sip during night.

 

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2023-08-29 KM15

Moving to Page 2 of our paper map.

 

En route to Half Dome

 

 

 

 

 

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2023-08-29 KM15

Our 1st camp in 2023, just southwest of Clouds Rest, was quiet with no neighbors. We will carry this tent a total of 605 km (and up another 6.3 km) and stay in it for another 25 nights. 

--- MAP --

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2023-08-28 KM15

Day 1 - arriving at our 1st camp - we love the concept of dispersed camping..

Dispersed camping is a form of camping that takes place outside of designated campgrounds. It is a great way to experience the wilderness without having to worry about campground fees or reservations.

-- MAP ---

Elevation Gain: 705m

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