John Muir Trail, Day One

Before I start on the trail, I should explain how we got here….

Basically back in January myself and Ken Muench, an old work colleague/friend – who now lives outside of LA, we’re catching up, comparing how we both loved to go on big long hikes, despite this being a little more than most reasonable people prefer, and that even our very fit/active spouses were willing to put up with. We realized we should give them a break, and just go on a hike together.

We settled on going to Yosemite National Park, one of the most famous hiking thru-trails in the US, particularly the John Muir Trail, a 250 mile portion that goes through Yosemite. We’d take a week off work and do about a 6 day hike, about 75 miles in total, to get a sample of what was supposedly really scenic mountains of the High Sierra’s.

Hiking any part of the John Muir trail requires a lot of preparation! You need first to win a permit in a weekly lottery as they strictly limit the number of hikers on the trail at any one time. Then you need to plan your hike, including getting a whole lot of equipment to ensure you can eat, sleep, hike and be safe for the duration of a very remote region where there are lots of black bears and mountain lions and not a lot of cell phone coverage!

Yosemite is in California, about midway from LA and San Francisco, so I flew to San Francisco and got a flight to Bishop, the nearest airport, while Ken drove up from LA, and picked me up at airport, driving to Mamouth Lake, where we stayed the first night to get used to the altitude (about 8,000 feet about sea level)

After months of planning and prep, as well as the last few weeks working hard to avoid a last minute covid infection we were clearly excited to start, here we are at the start of the trail!

We were starting at Horseshoe Lake, a very strange landscape because of all the poisonous gases in the ground that was frequently released killing all the trees in the area, with lots of warning signs telling hikers not to camp in the area, or we’d end up like the trees! Noted!

We got started and pretty quickly we were lucky enough to get a sighting of a black bear, very common in the park, but basically harmless creatures that are easily frightened off, despite having a sweet tooth for all the food hikers bring with them on their hikes!

[wpvideo q1JvFFl1 ]

We also were able to see the Devil’s Post Pile, a famous geologic feature of some cliffs in the park, that make it look like the Clift is made of perfectly formed pipes!

We figured the first day would be tough, not alone were our bodies still getting used to high altitudes, but our back packs were at our heaviest, loaded down with all the food we would need for the trip. My backpack ended up weighing about 24lbs in total. So by the time we got to our first camp ground, at about 10k feet altitude, after a 6 mile continuous end-of-day, uphill hike, we were pretty exhausted, so much so that at one point Ken thought he heard a Bear growling, only to turn around and realize it was me moaning in exhaustion! Here I am at the end of the first day hiking, pretty wiped!

That said, our first campsite was really lovely, at Lake Rosalie, crystal clear waters, overlooked by imposing granite cliffs.

All in all, while exhausted, and more than a little worried about how we’d feel in the morning, the first day had gone well, wild life, incredible views and all our equipment, hiking shoes, tents etc were working well! By the time sunset at 8pm, i was ready to get a good night sleep, and fingers crossed feel better in the morning and better adjusted to altitude!