JMT Resupply (Options & Recommendations)

resupplying on the John Muir Trail can be a little challenging compared to some of the other trails out there in the country so what are the options they have out there what does he cost associated with those options and what are my recommendations [Music] welcome back hikers to another edition of my John Muir Trail post thru-hike videos as I said earlier I'm going to be focusing on resupplying today now after I got my permit and after you probably get your permit one of the first things that you might start looking into is how to resupply where to resupply now I was self bound going on the JMT which you're in resupply options are gonna look a little bit differently whether you're heading southbound or whether you're heading northbound self bound you have the most practical places to pick up your resupplies during the first half of your journey and the most resupply points opposed heading northbound on the GMT where you are going to be hiking quite a few miles going over a pass to be able to get to a trailhead to hitch into a town to resupply but more on that I want to talk about resupplying heading southbound and of course again northbound is gonna be flip-flop to that so coming out of your cemani Valley the first resupply point that you're going to hit is Tuolumne Meadows 12e Meadows is 23.1 trail miles in on the JMT you'll hit the junction and it's under a half a mile walk on highway 120 to be able to go down to the camp store and post office now this is a post office which means you don't have to pay any money to pick it up which is really nice especially when I talk about the cost of picking up packages along the way there are two different post office in Yosemite one is in Yosemite Valley the other is in Tuolumne Meadows it's important that you state on your package it's going to Tuolumne meadows or it might end up at Yosemite Valley and it's not going to help you at all now one of the things that I would have done differently on my Third Reich and what I'd recommend here is not carrying so much food during the first 23 miles of your journey because half of those 23 miles you are climbing about 6 to 7,000 feet at a Yosemite Valley every single ounce every single pound is going to feel a little bit heavier and if you send a flat rate box which is what I recommend and what I would do to Tuolumne meadows as your first resupply and you're going to enjoy those first 23 miles so much more especially if you plan on doing things like clouds rest maybe making a side trip to Half Dome although you're not gonna be carrying all of your food and items there but it just makes for a lot more enjoyable hike coming out of Yosemite Valley now Tuolumne meadows also has a grill there so you can grab something to eat and that can make up for one of your meals when I ate there I touch that I had a very very light dinner my first night out of Tuolumne meadows now I did say that there is a camp store here that's connected to the post office they're all in one area along with the grill now the camp store is accommodating to quite a few things that you would probably eat out there on the trail but the food's going to be a little bit more expensive and since you don't have to pay to pick up a resupply there I would just send a resupply point there instead of trying to rely on resupplying in the actual camp store now a couple other things note here there is no hiker box here like you'll see at other resupply points that you can scrounge up scraps and other meals and use those as part of a resupply not going to find that here there are bear boxes that you'll see when you stroll into Tuolumne meadows some folks have tried to drop their food resupply point in those bear boxes and they say this on the Yosemite National Park website Rangers check that all the time and they will take the resupply out and throw it away so you don't want to do that because your resupply probably won't be in the bear box when you stroll through there trying to look for it the second resupply point that you're going to hit heading southbound on the JMT is reds medal Red's meadow is at mile marker 59.3 and it is the most convenient place on the JMT to be able to not just get your resupply but also be able to get a nice hot meal if you want to stay at their cabins it's kind of a little resort there's also a camp store there they have showers so they have all of the hiking services that one would need when they are going to resupply and freshen up so Red's metal I stopped there it was great I mean every single GMT through Eiger or PCT through hiker it's probably gonna be stopping here at Red's meadow now Red's metal is directly off the trail which makes this so convenient make sure if you're heading southbound you take the second exit point because it literally is right there on the left-hand side if you take the first one it's probably about a half mile hike to get up into Red's meadow how the resupply works at Red's meadow you actually will send it to the Mammoth Lakes post office Red's meadow goes down and they pick up your resupply at Mammoth Lakes post office and then bring it back to Red's meadow the cost of this service to pick it up and to hold it at Red's meadow is $40 you need to fill out a form that authorizes Red's meadow to pick up your resupply at the post office they'll use that form to show the post-office and then that is the time you'll also put your information on there to pay for the forty dollar charge that'll cost for your pickup at Red's meadow now because Reds metal is accessible by car you can also have an option if you live around the area can be driving through that area you can drop it off at Red's meadow if you're on your way north or south to start your through hike and the cost will be three dollars to hold it per day and then you pay that when you pick it up so if you're out there for ten days it takes you to get to Red's meadow then it's gonna cost you thirty bucks to pick up your package so you can save a little bit of money and of course money with shipping as well now one of the other options that you have to resupply here is to take the shuttle bus into Mammoth Lakes Mammoth Lakes is a very popular ski town but also means it's going to be expensive especially if you're out there on a weekend and staying in Mammoth Lakes but cost of the shuttle I think is right around $7 and it runs whenever the area opens up this year it was really late in 2017 because of all the snow and then it runs through the Wednesday after Labor Day so $7 and it will pick you up it runs daily and is a great option if you want to go down into Mammoth Lakes now the third option that you have is to send your resupply to Vermillion Valley Resort also known as vvr now the backdrop to VBR is it is not accessible to get to vvr resort like Red's metal or Tuolumne Meadows it's going to be a little bit of a jaunt you have a couple different options to get to vvr the first and most popular is to take their water ferry they leave the resort at nine o'clock in the morning and four o'clock in the afternoon every single day to drive hikers to and from the pickup point on the other side of Lake Edison now to get to Lake Edison on the JMT you will take the junction which set mile marker any eight heading self bound it's a 1.5 mile hike to get to the ferry landing now they're gonna leave the landing at 9:45 each day and 4:45 p.m. so it's important that you know you need to be there beforehand so that you can get on that ferry and get back to vvr now the second option is the option I took and one I would not recommend which is actually walking around Lake Edison to get to vdr now the nice thing about this is you are going to avoid having to pay the ferry fee of $13 to get to vvr they also have round-trip ferry fees of $22 so you see have a few bucks if you do a round-trip now the total distance from that junction at mile marker 88 and the gmt to get to vvr it's about seven miles and the seven miles that goes around the lake is not flat you're going to be ascending just over a thousand feet total ascent over the entire seven miles and honestly I would have just taken the ferry now the last couple of options r41 north bounding oneself on the option to avoid a part of the trail and just hiked into vvr for North bounders you can take the Barretts trail which is pass seldom pass and it is actually not that bad of a trail it's about five and a half miles from the junction of the GMT taking the bear Ridge down to the trailhead and then an additional 1.5 mile road walk from that trailhead to vvr and heading northbound going down that is going to be really mild it's not bad at all honestly if you don't care about missing a portion of the PCT or GMT now of course you can just turn around and take that way out come back up the bear Ridge if you want to hike every single mile it's actually what I did when I left VBR that's the way I took backup to get connected to the JMT now the other option is for South bounders you can skip silver pass and take Goodell pass it's a junction right before silver passed over Goodell and then down into vvr now in terms of the resupply cost on their website it states that in the month of May September October which is the slower months they charge $65 for you to pick up the package at vvr and then during the most popular months which is June July and August they charge $27 now one thing to note is I picked up my package sometime the middle to later part of September and they only charged me $27 now you are going to be sending this package straight to vvr you cannot send it to a Pio and needs to be sent through UPS or FedEx only now in addition to the recipients here at VBR there's an outstanding hiker box there when I was there lots and lots of food was like the cornucopia of hiker boxes that I've seen so they do have options here for you to be able to scrounge through and scrape through a hiker box and then they do have a smaller camp store it's nowhere near as big as Red's meadow or Tuolumne Meadows but as a smaller camp store and then of course they do have a diner at PVR as well now the diner is open breakfast lunch and dinner the portion sizes are much larger than the other places that I was at but was more expensive there are accommodations here of a hostel they basically have like eight mattresses in a tent that you can stay at cost I believe is about $15 I did it there and I slept great now they do have free camping at VBR so you can go to VBR and you can stay on their premise on the resort for free by camping in this designated spot and that leads me to the fourth option of resupplying on the John Muir Trail which is Muir Trail ranch or MTR this is the most popular because it is almost directly in the middle of GMT so it makes it really easy for folks to be able to send the resupply because they're halfway done whether you are heading northbound or you're heading southbound location of MTR op the trail is also pretty darn convenient if you are heading southbound you take the first Junction because there's two different junctions to get to MTR it's about a mile hike and the other Junction if you're a northbound is about a mile and a half now the downside of this is the cost of the resupply the resupply bucket no matter the time of year that you come to pick it up is going to be $80 none in addition to the $80 cost to pick it up you're only a lot at 25 pounds for your entire resupply now if you go over that 25 pounds it's going to cost you $2 for every additional pound and you have to send it in a bucket you have to send it in a bucket because how they transport this you send this to a post office and then they have to transport across a lake and on mule to get up to Muir Trail ranch so there is significant amount of resource to take this from post office and get it to the ranch which is why it cost so much money now just like Red's meadow you have to pay for this resupply option in advance there is a link I'll put all the links I talked about by the way here below in the description box but there's a link on their website that you'll click on you'll take you to a portal a secure portal for you to pay for the $80 resupply now if it's higher than 25 pounds heavier than 25 pounds then the additional charge they're gonna charge you when you pick up your resupply at the ranch now the flip side of that there is a free place to stay just pass me a trail ranch right next to the river by the hot springs yes there are hot springs there so now you past Muir Trail ranch and the last two resupply points on the John Muir Trail are going to require you to have to hike up and over a pass off the trail and will be quite a few miles to get down into either the town of Bishop or the town of Independence so heading southbound Muir Trail ranch and on is going to be difficult to get to a resupply point and when I say difficult just again a lot of miles now heading northbound coming from Mount Whitney the first half of your journey it's gonna be the same so these two options that you have the first which is again heading southbound is to go over Bishop pass it should pass is at mile marker 130 6.9 that's where the junction is and this is a trek one way to go up and over Bishop pass which looking at the profile is a pretty steep climb is going to be somewhere between 12 to 13 miles just one way so getting it into the town of Bishop is gonna require you to make a round trip hike of 26 miles so know that going into Bishop it is the less popular of these two exit points on the last half of the trail if you do get off you decide to go over Bishop pass you'll get to the trailhead and then you need to find a hitch into Bishop depending on the time of year and whether it's a weekday a weekend I heard it could be difficult and might not be the best option being able to get a hitch but that is an option now the town of Bishop has a ton of places to resupply it's a nice huge mountain town now if you do decide to take bishop pass and go into Bishop I would definitely recommend taking a zero at Bishop because there's just so much stuff to do there it's a cool little town which brings me to the last practical exit point on the JMT to get a resupply or the first if you're heading northbound and that is at mile marker one seventy nine point four to 180 there's actually three different junctions that was going to head to onion Valley to get to onion value you are going to hike over a Kearsarge pass and as you kind of see here there's a theme to be able to get off of the JMT at any exit point you have to go over a mountain pass now the mileage for this is somewhere between seven point five to nine miles on gut hooks they say that it's nine miles but I've seen pictures on the trail that said seven point five miles from the junction to onion Valley but it's somewhere in that range and this is a pretty popular option for PCT hikers JMT hikers to get off and go into the town of independence and resupply now when you get into onion Valley you have to hitch in to independence which is a more practical hitch than going out of the bishop trailhead from what I've read and what I've researched and going into the town of Independence there's a post office there and your most viable impractical resupplies that just send a resupply to that post office independence is a very small mountain town it does not have a lot of options to resupply and it might be more practical if you get into Independence and you do want to resupply you don't want us to resupply to the post office is to take the bus line up to Bishop it will cost $7 and it will either go up to Bishop or it can go down to Lone Pine and then the next day you can take it back now outside of these six options that I mentioned there are some other options that you have that aren't as practical the first is actually hire Packers so you can hire a horse Packer that will come in and meet you and drop your food at some point on the JMT I've heard the cost of that could be as much as three hundred and fifty dollars maybe even more depending on what you're bringing in but it's a lot of money and for most of us it's probably not gonna be really practical the other option is if you have friends that live in the area and you can talk them into it they could hike in at one of the jam tee exit points all the way up over the past and meet you on the GMT or you can meet on top of the past and be able to get your resupply so those are a couple other things that you could do depending on if you have the resources now as for recommendations I did my one and only resupply to DVR and it actually worked out really well for me especially because it was only $27 which is the cheapest paid resupply that you have on the trail now there are a couple of things depending on really how many miles that you're going to be going you're going to be stopping at Red's meadow anyway but vvr especially you know if you're going during that peak time I would recommend going to vvr you'll love vvr and doing your resupply there instead of Red's meadow this gives you an opportunity you can you know if you do 12 E Meadows at mile marker 23 you have about 60 miles or so 65 miles between 12 Meadows VBR for your next resupply so if you can make that then that is what I would do you could just stop at res meadow grab dinner grab breakfast on the next day on your way out and if you need to grab some things at the camp store now in terms of MTR most hikers are going to go to Muir Trail ranch and do a resupply it makes sense it's halfway the reason why I did was just because of the cost associated with MTR and I knew that I was going to be closed MTR closed the year that I hiked the JMT about the middle of September and I didn't get to MTR until closer to the third week into September so there was no need for me to go there if I wasn't picking up a resupply bucket the hiker box at MTR is supposed to be the best along the entire trail MTR again viable option and if it's open definitely recommend going out to MTR now in terms of resupplying it at MTR if you can resupply at VBR and be able to make it to Kearsarge and not have to go to MTR it's gonna save you a lot of money and if I did or when I do the JMT again that's probably what I'm going to do I know I can do the miles and I'd like to go over Kearsarge this time I did not go over Kearsarge I just did my last resupply at vvr and I just went the last 120 or so miles of one resupply so it really depends on the mileage that you are going to be doing but you can save some big money if you avoid that resupply bucket MTR but overall there's lots of different options that you can do here and it just really depends on how many miles that you really can do or are willing to do because then you'll be able to plot out really what resupply options will make sense well guys that wraps up my video of resupplying on the John Muir Trail if you have any questions about the logistics of any of the resupplies anything for that matter please put them below I'll do my best to be able to answer them or if others that have done this it can be able to answer then we can do that as well remember to always follow Bigfoot [Music] you

Channel: Follow Bigfoot

Views: 29,279

Keywords: Resupply options & recommendations for the JMT, Follow Bigfoot, Bigfoot, JMT resupply, Resupply, John Muir trail, MTR, VVR, Reds meadow, Muir trail ranch

Id: Lm-LT5aQCSc

Length: 21min 43sec (1303 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 29 2017