JMT – Day 3 – July 15, 2008

This is the third in a series of posts documenting Reuben’s John Muir Trail backpacking trip from July 13-26, 2008. Each day will have its own post–reposted from a handwritten journal kept on the trail and paired with photos from each day.

The John Muir Trail (JMT) is a long-distance trail in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, running 211 miles (340 km) from the Happy Isles trailhead in Yosemite Valley south to the summit of Mount Whitney on the border of Sequoia National Park and Inyo National Forest. It is named for naturalist John Muir. The elevation of the John Muir Trail seldom dips below 8,000 feet (2,400 m), it crosses six passes in excess of 11,000 feet (3,400 m) with a total cumulative elevation gain of just over 46,000 feet (14,000 m) and descends just over 38,000 feet (12,000 m).

Lyle Canyon was incredibly misty when we woke up this morning. With quite a bit of rain over the last two days, I was a little upset that it was not a dry morning — everything we had was wet or damp at this point, and I just wanted to dry off. When our tent was wet, it was impossible to shake all the water off , and it seemed like the clinging water added a pound or two to my pack weight. While the misty canyon was very beautiful in the morning, I really failed to enjoy it because of my frustration.

We were so tired, we had forgotten to set our alarms properly the night before, and even though we had gone to bed before sunset, we didn’t get up as early as we had wanted to. After breakfast we got our sore muscles and joints moving towards Donahue Pass. I didn’t really know what to expect, as I had never hiked a pass before. It was much longer and harder than I had expected. Every time the climb leveled out a bit, I thought the top was near, and every time, we started climbing again. We passed our first alpine lake and briefly lost the trail. The mosquitoes we absolutely crazy at this point and even pulling out the maps to check our route was intense with the bugs.

Hiking out of Lyle Canyon. We camped in the green meadow area you can see down in the canyon.

Our first alpine lake where the mosquitoes were super bad.

A rest break before we hit the top of Donahue Pass

We didn’t make it all the way up the pass until around noon. Nick’s knee was really hurting him at this point, and we stopped for a rest near the top of the pass. I knew my knees were going to cause problems on the descent, but ascending didn’t seem to bother them that much. There were quite a few hikers on the top of the pass, where we stopped for 45 minutes or so. I dried out some of my gear and made sure to apply lots of sunscreen as we were well above treeline. We met a Yosemite park ranger on the top as well, who checked our permits and gave us some instruction about camping restrictions in the direction we were headed. This would be the last time our permit was checked for the rest of the trail.

We headed down the other side of the pass, with the hot afternoon sun beating down on us. We had wanted to stop for lunch at this point, but with the lack of shade above treeline, pushed on until our first opportunity for a comfortable break. During lunch we dried out more of our gear and enjoyed some time with our boots off.

Lunch break in some shade after the pass.

After lunch we climbed again over a much smaller pass – Island Pass. At the top we were rewarded with a great view of Banner Peak with Thousand Island Lake below. The lake looked too good to pass up, so we stopped for our first swim break. After a few rainy hiking days with no shower, a swim felt so incredibly refreshing. When I got out I enjoyed laying in the sun in my underwear, and got super bitten up by the mosquitoes, but I didn’t care much as I was feeling great.

Our first view of Banner Peak and Thousand Island Lake.

Swim Break!

As we were laying in the sun, we heard more thunder. It looked like another storm was heading in. We thought maybe we would just miss it if we started hiking as we were right on the edge of the clouds. We headed out with the hope that we would not get rained on again. On our way past the lakes, we stopped to refill water and ran into two other JMT hikers: Vip and Clockwork Orange. We hiked with them for the rest of the evening, chatting as we went. Clockwork had a similar trail exit date as us, and mentioned that we may be able to get a ride from a friend of his to Reno, were we were catching flights and trains. This sounded like a much better plan than the succession of bus rides that we had pieced together for our return journey. Vip was taking the trail with a bit of a slower pace, but pushed on through the evening with the group to an area where we could all camp together.

Jess filling up from a stream.

We ended up just barely missing the storm we were trying to avoid. We never encountered rain again for the rest of the trip!

Looking back at Banner Peak and the storm we just avoided.

We had difficulty finding a campsite, but when we did, we all ate dinner together and enjoyed some Jim Beam and hot chocolate. We had put our bottle of whisky in the Toulomne hikers box the day before as none of us are big whisky fans, and we wanted to avoid the weight. It just so happens that Clockwork had taken that same bottle from the bin, allowing us to enjoy it as a group after dinner! We chatted a bit more and then headed to bed when we started to lose the light.

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Daily Stats
Mileage: 17.3 (28km)
Estimated Ascent: 2,300 Feet
Estimated pack weight: 35 pounds
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