The Travels of Carrie and Adrian: John Muir Trail

We have just returned from the Muir Trail trip, and are spending a few days of decadence (beach lolling, dog walking, movie watching, dolphin spotting, food enjoying) at Carrie's parents' beach house before returning for two days in the bay area on our way north. Bay area friends, we will be in your neighborhood from the evening of July 28th (Monday) through the morning of July 31st (Thursday), when we will be leaving for Portland, Seattle, and then Belllingham, where our Alaska ferry embarks.

So here is the second installment of our emailing newsletter. We are still negotiating how we will do this (with two voices and a diverse audience) and this may be too long for people, like Carrie, with attention span issues or people, like many of you, with jobs, to find time for. There are more picures of this, and we'll send them out in due course.

We have successfully completed the first leg of our round the world extravaganza, with a really wonderful 24 day jaunt along the 218 mile John Muir Trail in California's Sierra Nevada Mountain range. Carrie had done this trip before, three years ago, with various family members, but was excited to have another go. The preparation before the trip was one of the most challenging aspects of the whole adventure. We had a lot of logistics to work out, including ferrying of people, meeting of different participants at different points along the way, and the all-important issue of food. We had a marathon shopping event at the Berkeley Bowl supermarket a couple weeks before beginning the hike, buying carts full of food which we took home to sort, rebag, cook, dehydrate, and eventually mail off in five-gallon plastic containers.

Removing the dehydrate food scraps from the dehydrating machine.

Mount Banner and Mount Ritter

Packaged up food awaiting posting. This was enough for 3 people for about 5 days. Note quantity of packaging; all arranged per day and per portion.

Our stack of Lonely Planet guidebooks, assembled just prior to the trip. We never carried this many, but by a combination of posting, we carried only 4 or 5 at any one time. The stack was reunited at the end of the trip.

Rehydrating the tomato based dried product on the trail.

Inside the dehydrating machine.

Shopping for the food in the Berkeley Bowl "bulk" food aisle. This is excellent for our purposes, having many different types of dried foods available, without packaging.

The dehydrator being loaded with tomato slop.

Constructing the GORP that was to keep us sustained duing the lunchtime periods

Loading up the dehydrator again - due to repeated questions about this technique from you, our readers, there is quite a bit of detail about this device.

On Saturday, June 28th, after a complicated series of maneuvers, the campers met in Yosemite valley for a last fresh meal and a first introduction to one of the few trials of the trip: mosquitoes. At the beginning, we were: Adrian, Carrie, and Carrie's uncles Roger and Jim. Although the official JMT route is South to North, we were very content traveling North to South. Obviously this route is easier, being downhill, but in addition has the advantage of starting off at more manageable elevations and growing increasingly dramatic, with a climactic finish on Mt. Whitney (Monday, July 22nd). At the commencement of our trip we found ourselves running into hordes (that is to say, dozens) of PCT through hikers - these are folks who are hiking from Mexico (yes, Mexico) to Canada (uh-huh)--the length of the Pacific Crest Trail. Usually these would be either wild-eyed sandaled types with impressive John Muir style facial hair or less wild-eyed but still bearded types with their partners (presumably providing salutary conversational outlets), carrying two pounds worth on their backs and sprinting up trails with the aid of trendy hiking poles. By the end of the trip the window for such hard core hikers had closed (they have to complete the trail within certain months determined by weather and season) and most of our fellow-hikers were others working on the JMT.

Roger had accompanied Carrie and others on the trip three years ago but had missed the first week, so this time he wanted to fill in the gap. He hiked with us for a week; a day after he left, we met with Carrie's dad, brother, and brother's friend, with whom we hiked for four days; meanwhile we met our friend Fabrice and his parents. Fabrice joined the trip as Carrie's dad etc. left, and hiked with us for another week, at the end of which his sporting parents again hiked in to meet us for another night outdoors. Then, Jim, Carrie, and Adrian hiked the last four nights on our own. Despite the somewhat complex arrangements which these various meetings, on top of our three food drops, entailed, we felt it was worth it to have the pleasure of camping with the variety of companions. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and dealt well with the altitude and the mozzies.

Red's meadow - our first resupply station, and the last place where we saw a car.

Jim inside his tent trying to avoid the mosquitos. These creatures made our lives a misery for a few days

Washing myself in a stream (quite cold).

Mist from one of the waterfalls on the way out of Yosemite valley producing a rainbow.

The Fish Scale being put to use before setting out. In this way I was able to determine whose pack really was the heaviest, and by how much (Carrie's and lots). Hers was 52lbs max, but the weight varied considerably between resupplies, and over the day as water was drunk.

Bear claw mark on a tree.

A bear on a tree.

Bighorn Lake. We went here in an attempt to avoid the pesky mosquitoes, and only partially succeeded in doing so.

Playing scrabble on the trail.

What the John Muir Trail looks like for most of its length.

We settled quickly into a daily routine which went something like this: Jimmy up with the sun, to start our super-duper Dragonfly stove boiling water Others up gradually, for oatmeal (if we were lucky) or gruel (which we made the mistake of packing for a change from the oatmeal) and tea or coffee Packing, feet-administering, sun cream slathering 8:15 or thereabouts: Begin the walk 10:30 ish: First morning break, for Jimmy's Whip-a-Dip GORP* and water (unfiltered, with so far no ill effects!) 12:30 or 1:00 pm: Lunch, by some running water in which Jimmy dipped his hot feet 3:00 or so: stop for the day at a devastatingly picturesque spot (some more so than others--increasingly wowing as the trip wore on and the altitude increased). We hiked between five and fifteen miles daily, and gained or lost at least several hundred feet (often a few thousand) most days In camp, we would: don tevas; bathe (dip or swim as the water allowed, gasping or sighing with alternate shock and pleasure); read; begin dinner preparations 6:00: First course of boullion, followed by soup and then the entree (five of which were in rotation--heavy on pasta and rice) We were in bed by nine, and then began again

Mount Whitney, from the west with gathering clouds.

The Southern Sierra taken from the side trip I did. We stayed next to a lake visible near the bottom of this picture.

Bighorn Lake again, at sunset.

Us having achieved one of the passes - maybe Pinchot - I forget which.

The contents of our first aid kit. The observant might spot the prescence of a number of non-first aid related items, but some things can have more than one use.

Carrie swimming in Evolution Lake.

The kitchen.

Climbing up to Bighorn lake (which is not on the Muir Trail so doesn't get many visitors).

Mosquito netted, moving quickly long the trail.

Stream crossing. We carried Tevas for crossing these things.

Highlights of the trip included: - daily dips in mountain streams and lakes (some numblingly cold, others merely refreshingly so) - morning breaks with GORP - conversation with interesting people - reading aloud of Mark Twain's "Roughing It" - Scrabble matches - bear. marmot. columbine, and deer spotting - views from passes and across lakes
Carrie and Adrian

*GORP recipe: roasted unsalted peanuts, lots; roasted unsalted cashews, more; peanut m and m's, tons;plain m and m's, tons; crunchy m and m's, tons; raisins, one or two