John Muir Trail 2016 Update

I have been struggling with how to best tell our John Muir Trail Story. It was challenging, exciting, and overwhelming at times.  My biggest dilemma…how do I format the story? Do I write a novel, make a paragraph for each day or just show miles hiked and elevation gained/lost? I found my answer to be “YES” to all of it. So I just started writing about each days events…now I have a novel. As of this posting I have 38 typed pages of run on sentences and mind numbing gibberish but I am on day 19 of 30…so there is an end in sight. When it came to hiking data I became frustrated with the different ways to compile this data. I looked at Mapshare with Delorme, the JMT Hiker app on my phone and Sierra Mapper. I finally settled on using Sierra Mapper as my primary source. It turned out to be the easiest and I liked the little altitude maps it produced.

“Sometimes just getting started helps you refine your decision.” Bobby Burgess

So…Here is the “Plan“!

I plan to write a novel with a short paragraph overview and a “Read More” button if you would like to dig deeper. I will do gear reviews with gear fails and how I worked around these fails. I will upload lots of pictures. I will blog/vlog about my prep. Share what worked and didn’t work. I’m sure I will think of other things to post as I go along. So please bare with me as I tackle this huge project.

Red’s Meadow Resupply!

On our 3rd day of hiking we resupplied at Red’s Meadow. I knew our first few days on the trail would be difficult. We opted to spend a little extra money so we didn’t kill ourselves with food weight on the first two days. This turned out to be a very wise decision for us. As we built each resupply at home, we loaded the contents into our individual Bearvault BV500 canisters…you know…to make sure it would fit. The photo of me with the resupply bucket on my head reflects my looming task of stuffing my bear can. I needed to stuff it exactly the way I did at home…because I KNOW this stuff will fit in this can. It took a few tries to get it all in there. Of all the things related to planning for the John Muir Trail, food planning and bear canister stuffing was my weakest link.

It’s Your Turn!

I would love to hear some of your hiking experiences while on the John Muir Trail. I especially like funny stories. Leave a comment below…I’d really like to hear from you…let’s connect!