John Muir Trail, Sierra Nevadas
August 4-14, 2007
L to R: Bryan Mignone, Sam LaRoque, Dave O'Brien, and Kyle Dawson
Hike Description
We hiked ~100 miles of the John Muir Trail (JMT) in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California over 10 days. Our starting point was Silver Lake near Lee Vining, which put us onto the JMT South of Yosemite, and we exited the JMT at Bishop Pass. On Day 5 we stayed at the hiker-friendly Vermilion Valley Resort, where we picked up the resupply packages we mailed out a few weeks earlier, and got a huge dinner and breakfast at their restaurant. One of us (who will remain nameless) weighed himself before dinner and again after breakfast, and was 5 pounds heavier!
The weather was awesome. We saw essentially no clouds until the 9th and 10th days, and it was generally warm and sunny during the day and not too cold at night. There were a few cold mornings, which oddly occurred when we were at the lowest elevations. I guess the cold air flooded down into the valleys overnight. There was a bit of smoke in the air on a few days from one or more forest fires in the area, but generally it was very clear.
The total distance, including the trails into and off of the JMT, was 115 miles, There was about 20,000' of serious climbing, and 17,500' of serious descending, but that only counts the changes of several hundred feet or more--the trail was always going up and down to some degree, and there were only about 5-10 miles over the whole hike that I would actually say seemed "flat."
My Pictures!
The pictures are organized by day, and include a brief description of distances, elevations, and highlights of the day:
Day 0 -- Before the Hike
Day 1 -- Silver Lake to Garnet Lake
Day 2 -- Garnet Lake to Red's Meadow
Day 3 -- Red's Meadow to Duck Creek
Day 4 -- Duck Creek, over Silver Pass to Silver Pass Creek
Day 5 -- Silver Pass Creek to Vermilion Valley Resort
Day 6 -- Vermilion Valley Resort to Upper Bear Creek Meadow
Day 7 -- Upper Bear Creek Meadow, over Selden Pass to King's Canyon National Park
Day 8 -- Evolution Valley to Evolution Lake
Day 9 -- Evolution Lake, over Muir Pass to Bishop Pass Trail
Day 10 -- Out over Bishop Pass to South Lake
Other People's Pictures
Kyle's
More Info
The Wikipedia entry has a lot of info about the JMT. There's a free set of topo maps available here. This page has a lot of info about the trail and planning for a trip, including info about resupply points. We resupplied at the Vermilion Valley Resort, which is very hiker-friendly and has a store and restaurant. Their web page has info about how to mail your resupply packages to them.
We used the Guide to the John Muir Trail by Winnett and Morey and the JMT Map-Pack by Tom Harrison when planning the trip. Both are compact and light enough to bring along on the trail as well.
Contact me
Last modified August 19, 2007