7 TIPS for hiking the JOHN MUIR TRAIL - JMT backpacking

in this video i'm going to share seven tips for hiking the john muir trail let's go [Music] the john muir trail or jmt is one of the world's premier backpacking destinations it's just so gorgeous out there and very difficult to get a permit but if you're one of the lucky ones who's been able to secure a permit in the lottery congratulations you are up for an amazing amazing hike and if you're still checking your email every day hoping for that winning message good luck and i hope you get it one of the reasons i started this channel in the first place was to give back to the backpacking community when my son and i did the john muir trail back in 2018 we had so many questions so many uncertainties and things we were worried about but we were able to rely on a lot of the people who were out on youtube and other platforms sharing information and advice that really helped improve our journey and that's my goal here today is to share information that we gained on our trip to help you be prepared and have a better trip just one quick note our trip was southbound and although a couple of the tips have a little bit of a southbound flavor to them regardless of which direction you're going they should be valid for you also we hiked in 2018 which was a low snow year we also hiked in late july early august so we never really had any snow at all the whole time so keep that in mind as well so let's get started with the tips tip number one is acclimatize acclimatize acclimatize i can't stress this enough the elevation is no joke and we did run into people who had issues and had to actually leave the trail because they weren't used to the altitude let me tell you what my son and i did we spent one night camping at whitney portal campground which is about 8 000 feet then the second night we were at the tuolumne meadows campground which is about 8 600 feet from there we had our first night on the trail and then camped in the upper lyle canyon area which was just over ten thousand feet and that didn't work so well for me my son wasn't impacted in any way but it didn't work out for me what happened was i was taking a nap after we set up our tent and i checked my fitbit to look at my resting heart rate usually it's around 60 beats per minute but my resting heart rate was over a hundred beats per minute that was crazy i'm like what is going on here and then later that night when i tried to go to sleep i couldn't sleep hardly at all i was up pretty much the whole night and i woke up with just a pounding headache and i just didn't feel well at all i know that coffee and caffeine sometimes helps a headache and i forced myself to drink a cup of coffee and lo and behold my headache was gone like in 15 minutes it was almost like a miracle now i try to stay hydrated that day because i know caffeine is a diuretic and it's important to have lots of hydration to avoid altitude sickness from there i did start to get a little bit better the next day i had a little bit of a headache the morning of day two on the trail but it went away pretty quick after we got up it did take until day 10 for my resting heart rate to get back to normal i thought that was really crazy for it to take that long but when i got home i did a little bit more research and found that it can take even longer than that to your for your body to fully adjust to the altitude now we were coming from an area in the midwest without much elevation at all so for us to go from that to 8 000 to 8 600 to over 10 000 over the course of three days it just didn't work out for me i could have really benefited from another night or two at 8 500 in that range one thing we did was we're very careful to never camp one night that was more than a thousand feet higher in elevation than the previous night so if we camped at say 9 200 feet one night we would try to not go above say 10 200 the following night that and that really seemed to work for us also i would not assume that if you're in great cardiovascular shape but that's going to help you at all because my personal experience was that two months almost the day prior to starting our trip i had run a marathon and then i kept my training up all the way up till our hike so i was in pretty good shape going into our jmt hike and i got pretty sick from the altitude so just because you're in really good shape i don't think that gives you a free pass tip number two all of the southbound trailhead options are great now my son and i were all excited because we really wanted to get the happy isles starting trailhead we felt like that's going to allow us to do the trail in its entirety and we won't miss anything well we did get that trailhead but our permit got canceled the first day we were there due to wildfires and we ended up getting a walk-up permit and started in the lyell canyon area we were thinking oh no we're going to miss all the good stuff well the whole trail is the good stuff from one end to the other it's all good stuff and there's really not much you're missing out on by starting at one of those other trailheads so if you get a trailhead other than happy aisles don't worry about it one thing we also found that is when we went back in following year to complete that section and by the way it's a lot easier to get a permit for doing just that one section we found that first of all the hike out of yosemite valley was quite a slog very difficult and then second of all the crowds were just immense it was an absolute zoo down in yosemite but overall don't worry if you don't get a permit out of happy isles the other trail heads are all spectacular tip number three is have a toilet paper strategy as you know you have to pack out your toilet paper when you're on the john muir trail and let me tell you three weeks of used toilet paper is disgusting and if you don't have a good plan for it it is not going to work out well my suggestion is this triple bag it so have a bag inside another bag inside another bag in the second bag put a dryer sheet to help with the stench and then the outer bag should be something that's not clear because you don't want to have to look at it also it's a good idea to have a plan as to where you're going to store this in your pack preferably on the outside of your pack and somewhere where it's not going to get too close to your other gear i mean i'm telling you it was really kind of gross and having a way to deal with it is going to be really important for many of you you may not have backpacking areas where you do need to carry out your toilet paper so this might be new also please don't be that person that ignores the rules and buries their tp with their poo because up in the sierra the reason they have that rule is it just doesn't get that many warm days and there's just no time each year for that stuff to biodegrade like it might do in lower elevations so please follow the rules tip number four is be prepared to adapt on the fly now we all know that planning a big backpacking trip is really all part of the fun and those plans are so important to making sure that you're prepared when you get out there however so many things will just not go anywhere close to what you had planned and in order to keep yourself mentally strong you have to be prepared to adapt and adjust so here's a list of a couple things that went wrong for us that we had to adapt and adjust one like i mentioned before our permit got cancelled this is the permit that we tried for two years to get and finally got then you get there on the first day it's canceled that was heartbreaking but we adapted we figured out well we'll get a walk-up permit we got in line we got the permit we started from a different trailhead we had a little bit of extra food that we had to deal with but we got there the next thing we had to deal with was smoke now while having watched the news we knew darn well that there was going to be smoke out there due to the wildfires but we had no idea it was going to be as bad as it was during the first eight days it kind of came and went but there were times when it was just awful and almost suffocating there was so much smoke so what we did was a couple of things one we used smoke masks because of the smoke and because we knew that they would be helpful and we had seen suggestions from others we had brought them with us and we put on smoke masks when the smoke got really bad and that did help the second thing we did was a little bit more psychological and that was to talk to northbound hikers which were mostly pct hikers and find out from their experience where the smoke was ending and we knew that once we got to muir trail ranch it was going to end for the most part and we'd be smooth sailing after that and that really helped us to press on because if we thought that the entire trip would have been blanketed in smoke it would have been really hard to keep going the third area where we had to adapt and adjust is in relation to camping at some of the more popular areas we now know why thousand island lake is sometimes referred to as thousand camper lake it was just packed and we had a difficult time finding a good spot the second area was ray lakes that was just jam-packed and we gave puppy dog eyes to a very nice gentleman who let us set up our tents in some open spots near where he was otherwise it would have been difficult it is so discouraging when you're absolutely exhausted and you just want to set up camp and lay down and you can't find a spot what we learned was and some of these more popular spots it can be really helpful to look outside where the crowds are and go well off the trail there are plenty of campsites that are already established that you can go to you just have to look for them and don't get me wrong the whole trail wasn't packed like that there are just certain spots where quite a few overnight hikers or short section hikers go to in addition to the pct and jmt traffic and for us we noticed that was thousand island lakes and ray lakes for the vast majority of the nights we were there we had plenty of room to camp and didn't have to worry about large crowds at all but like i said the more you can find those secret spots and get a little bit off trail the better tip number five go to vbr vermillion valley resort now i know this one is a little controversial and there are some strongly held opinions on both sides for this one but hear me out my son and i were convinced that we were not going to vbr we weren't going to waste time getting a day off of our trip we weren't going to spend the time walking out to where the boat picks you up but some people that we were with convinced us to do it and i'm glad they did it's just a little hike off the main trail to get to the spot where the boat picks you up and a pontoon boat shows up and it gives you about a 45-minute boat ride to the resort once you get there you go and you sign in and what they do is they keep track of all the stuff you do and then you get a bill at the end so you don't have to pay cash all along the way they have beer and soda and a little resupply area there's also a hiker box with all kinds of stuff in it but the best part is they have showers they have laundry they have a big campfire area where you can hang out with other hikers and they have a restaurant we had steak dinner there and in the morning i had this huge breakfast with a breakfast burrito it was fantastic the time we spent around the campfire was also amazing vvr was honestly one of the highlights of our trip the main downside that people bring up about staying at vbr is the cost and let me tell you what it cost us we had the boat trip there and back our tent site for the night i did laundry we each took showers and then we bought a couple of supplies in the store and then we had our steak dinners and then breakfast in the morning and our total bill was 170 bucks or thereabouts now that may seem expensive but they are the only game in town and for all that we got it didn't really seem like that bad of a deal pricey yes it's certainly not a bargain basement place but overall for one of the best experiences we had on the trail i'd say it was well worth it tip number six know the snow conditions and plan accordingly snow conditions on the john muir trail can vary widely from year to year in some years it's a lower snowpack and other years it's way way more there is no well what is it going to be like on this date it really depends on that particular year we went in 2018 which was a low snow year and we were there in late july early august and i can tell you we never really set foot on snow the entire time we saw a patch of snow here and there but we never had to walk across snow so it wasn't an issue however in other years the snowpack can be much much higher and you can spend a lot of time walking on snow throughout your trip what you can do is keep an eye on websites like postholer.com and i'll put a link in the description and that'll kind of give you an idea of what is the snowpack in your year relative to what other years were if you are going to spend a lot of time hiking on snow there's a couple things you'll need to do one is think about micro spikes those will help with traction and grip when you're on the trail and may help you from slipping and falling secondly if you're going to be walking on a lot of snow on steeper areas an ice axe is really helpful and the reason you have an ice axe is mainly so if you slip and fall you can self-arrest and prevent yourself from sliding down and getting injured or even worse if you do get an ice axe make sure you practice it with it ahead of time it should be instinctive to you what to do when you fall you shouldn't have to think about it because the quicker you stop the better and i'm no mountaineering expert so please take some time to watch some videos on youtube or other materials about how to prepare and practice with your ice hacks but you want to make sure you're prepared and know how to use it when you get out there because if you don't know how to use it and you drop it or you stab yourself with it when you fall that is not going to be good another piece of gear that some people take on really high snow years are crampons so just one more thing to look into and to consider one thing i highly recommend to you is look at people's youtube videos that did the pct and the john muir trail in 2017 and 2019 because those were very high snow years almost like worst case scenario years and that'll give you an idea of what you could potentially be walking on if the snow levels are very high or if you're going earlier in the year tip number seven when you climb to the top of mount whitney do a sunrise summit now this is a tip that is very condition dependent when we went there was not any snow at all the entire way up and it was still kind of difficult doing it in the dark we did hear from some people that a few weeks prior in mid to late july there had been an ice storm on the way up to mount whitney and it got really slick and people had fallen and gotten pretty injured from that so it can be quite treacherous when it's slippery for me personally if it had been really icy i would not have attempted to climb up there in the dark especially knowing what i know now however this is a decision that each person has to make based on their own comfort level skill level and ability however if the conditions permit i would say get up there to the top in the dark so you're ready for the sunrise now we started our ascent before 2 am and we got there just in the nick of time so it does take several hours to get to the top even in good conditions and when the sun came up it was just awesome it's even hard to describe how everybody felt it was just kind of an emotional experience we looked around and you just saw so many folks where you could see the tears coming down their cheeks because it was just it was just that cool of a thing so i'd say if you can and it's safe get out there do that sunrise summit it can be really the highlight and the exclamation point at the end of a fantastic journey so that's my list of seven tips for backpacking the john muir trail and if you have your permit already congratulations you're gonna have the time of your life what an epic experience and i can't wait to see your videos and pictures after your trips are done our trip is out on youtube i split it up into four parts for easier watching however i didn't start my youtube channel until 2020 so what i had to do was kind of piece together video from the trip and do some kind of a coherent thing and i do cringe a little bit when i watch it knowing what i know now about filmmaking and how to make a cool hiking video however i do think they're still worth a watch so go check them out also there are tons of other videos out there that are just fantastic if you haven't seen mile a mile and a half check that one out it's probably one of the best as always if you found any value in this video please hit that like button and consider subscribing to my channel thanks and we'll see you on the trail

Channel: Jon Allen Outside

Views: 20,049

Keywords: hiking, backpacking, jmt, john muir trail, pct

Id: 1X2Ii-i1Ono

Length: 16min 59sec (1019 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021