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So I'm getting the itch to do the JMT again next year. I'm debating on whether I want to go solo this time or try to find at least one other person. My brother, my cousin, and some of his friends went with me when we did it in August of 2018, but my brother bailed out very early with knee pain from a previous injury and a couple of the others also called it early for various reasons. I've been looking over pictures from the trip and I wanted to share them with y'all. For better or worse, I didn't bring a real camera, so these are all just shots I took on my iPhone. We went northbound and had to start from Horseshoe Meadow/Cottonwood Lakes trailhead. So we went over New Army Pass and Crabtree Pass to get down into Crab Tree Meadow.  On the way up Crabtree Pass.  Crabtree Lake on the other side of the pass.   We set up camp at Crabtree Meadow and took day packs up to summit Whitney so we'd be able to claim the entire length of the trail. My brother and I made it to the summit at sunset, but it was too much for him and he would start his own hike out the next day. It was middle of the night by the time we got back to camp.  On the way for real toward Forester Pass. I took a ton of photos. I still need to go back and reference my photos and dates with my recorded route on gaia gps. So these are photos are some of my favorites, taken northbound to Yosemite and submitted mostly without comment. We did a total of 250 miles in 12 days, which included the hike in from Horseshoe Meadow and a small detour up half dome. If I recall, it was something like 100,000 feet of elevation change over the entire trip. With the pace we took, there was a lot of hiking before sunrise and after dark--and even though that kinda sucked, there were lots of opportunities to see the sunset from the top of a pass.                     Coming in from the backside of Yosemite provided us with a really great opportunity to go up Half Dome before the crowds hiking in from the parking lot and watch the sunrise.       We started with 7 and ended the trip with 4. If and when I do it again, I think I'm going to add a day or 2 to back off the pace just a little bit and be able to set up camp a few times before the sun goes down.
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Jul 10, 2020 23:50
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 11:16 |
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FCKGW posted:Goddamn those JMT pics. It’s worth doing and not too bad if you don’t take a breakneck pace, just a lot of logistics with supplies and shuttles and stuff you won’t know to think about unless you’ve done a through-hike. It was my first, but thankfully there’s a ton of information online. xzzy posted:GPS? I’ll see if I can get that for you. I can say that it’s right near the top of the Golden Staircase...like right where the winding trail starts actually having carved ‘stairs’ if you’re on the way down. Just below Lower Palisade Lake. The good news is that you don’t have to do the JMT to get there and it’s a very cool section of the trail, both up the staircase to the Palisade Lakes, and the other way toward Muir Pass. Google Bishop Creek Canyon; you can drive up to the resorts there or camp grounds or whatever—and you can pick up the Bishop Pass Trail, go over the pass, and drop down on to the JMT below the staircase. I want to do that trip with the family one day when my son is a little older. Levitate posted:JMT is beautiful. Trail and major camping spots are kinda crowded now. We went the 2nd week of August. Everyone hated Crabtree Pass and there wasn’t even any snow. It’s barely a trail. We got really lucky for a couple of reasons: the fires in Yosemite that year scuttled a bunch of southbound hikers because the park was closed and the shuttle services weren’t running. The Whitney Portal was closed for a couple of days when we arrived to start because of a small fire outside of Lone Pine. All of a sudden, our inability to get a Yosemite or Whitney permit for the start was a blessing. Cottonwood Lakes was still open. Yosemite opened tuolumne meadows, happy isles, and all the rest of the park 2 days before we got there. We saw very few people except where other shorter trails connected. Also, we were forced to eschew the most popular camp sites because we still had miles to make every night. There were at least 4 nights where there was an empty, prime camp site that we had to just walk on by while the sun was setting.
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Jul 11, 2020 01:33
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xzzy posted:Those are pretty good directions. Haha I’ll be damned. That’s impressive. Glad you found it  edit: also crazy that that’s at the end of where there’s a ‘street view’ to follow it looks like wuffles fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Jul 11, 2020 |
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Jul 11, 2020 02:08
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Levitate posted:Hah oh yeah it's not a trail at all. We also did Junction Pass on that trip and holy hell is that thing terrible, no wonder they re-routed the JMT. Then Shephard Pass was half covered in snow as well. This was 2017 I think. Yeah Junction is awful, never again. I’m also going to second the advise on packing light. I was right under 40# on the long leg from trailhead to MTR. I had too much food, even though I was limited by the size of the bear can. I’d read about people needing 4-5,000 kcal a day at the speed we were going to go, and I could barely eat more than 3,000. I had oatmeal for breakfasts that I never had time to make, and I never really stopped for a full lunch; just snacked while walking. Make sure you pack stuff that’s at least 100 kcal/oz or 4 kcal/g. One other thing to keep in mind is where you cut weight. My cousin had one of the lightest packs. He brought an ultralight tent that used a trekking pole as it’s only pole. He also decided to bring only one trekking pole. 3 days in he fell and snapped that trekking pole in half. He was fortunate that someone was there to lend him their second.
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Jul 11, 2020 14:56
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I just use a cheap Casio digital watch. I know what my pace feels like at 2mph and 3mph, so I just use that to ballpark how far I’ve gone or how far I still need to go to get to a landmark. Keeps me from looking at the phone/gps as often. Also on the water thing: I used to pump water and it was incredibly tedious and time consuming. Putting a sawyer filter in line on my 2L camelbak and just filling that up at the water source was a game changer for me—I mean, it’s so simple I feel kinda dumb not doing it earlier. I bring an empty disposable 1L water bottle for mixing in electrolytes—just add the powder and squeeze the water through the filter into the bottle. Top off the camelbak real quick and keep going.
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Jul 12, 2020 05:16
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pumped up for school posted:A camper came up recently in my household too. My wife's back is hosed, and she'll probably never backpack camp again. We've been looking at tiny teardrop trailers. My cousin has a camping-converted 4x4 sprinter and it’s really cool; I’m not sure what it cost him but the base 4x4 model will run you a pretty penny and are hard to come by in the US. There’s a wait list in a lot of places. Are you able to get the sprinter 2nd hand off your work? We have a 4x4 sprinter as well but it’s not converted to a camper. We have a lift for our daughter’s wheelchair and luxury custom interior since it’s mostly for driving around town and road trips. With the van, lift, and customizations it costs as much as a small house. I would imagine the camper conversion gets into similar territory cost-wise. We’re looking at something like the airstream basecamp to pull behind it and do some long trip/rv style camping in the next couple of years.
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Jul 14, 2020 18:38
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Mostly cardio—running on and off pavement. I‘d also load down my pack with water bottles, a cheap 25# bag of aquarium gravel, and some towels to help distribute the load; 10-15 pounds heavier than my heaviest pack day, and just speed hike a rolling trail as fast and as long as I could go. Made sure to work on strengthening stabilization muscles: planks, lunges, standing on a bosu ball. I got my cardio and legs to where I could string together as many 6-8 RPE miles as I wanted to do. It worked out really well for me in preparing for a strenuous thru hike.
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Jul 17, 2020 01:54
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George H.W. oval office posted:Ankers are baller. Never had a problem with 'em Agreed, I love my Astro Mini. It doesn’t meet the OPs specs but I’m sure they have a product that does. It’s been solid: durable, light weight, good for a couple of phone charges, and can trickle charge off my lightweight (but kinda wimpy) Renogy E.Flex5. JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:Run I put this in my previous post but wanted to emphasize again. Run. Everyone else in my group just put on heavy packs and did stairs—they didn’t do any running. 80-90% of my training was running. I came out the better for it on the trail and it wasn’t even close. I spent extra time on foot care every morning, so I left camp later than everyone else. By lunch, I’d caught or passed them, and at the end of the day I’d hit the mileage goal and be waiting for them to catch up.
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Jul 17, 2020 17:23
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incogneato posted:I've been happy with Gaia (paid subscription for offline use). Prior to that we used Avenza with manually downloaded Caltopo maps. Works fine for individual hikes, but requires more planning ahead. Also happy with Gaia, annual subscription is a nominal fee compared to the costs of even a single trip. What’s the consensus on satellite communicators—it seems like the Garmin inReach mini is what I’m looking for. It has some extra features I might be able to take advantage of, but really, I only need it to do 3 things well: 1. Text with my wife so she knows everything is good and if I’m on schedule 2. Send my GPS coords to her for the same reason 3. Send an SOS. Also I don’t want it to weigh a ton. In the past, either I’ve gone solo without it, someone else brought one, or we rented a sat phone.
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Jul 30, 2020 03:31
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LordAdakos posted:Just a heads up: last I heard, the bear vault series were not approved for a stretch along the AT. I want to say the smokies. And if you can’t find one that fits your needs for everywhere you want to go, there are rental options. We rented bearikades for the JMT. Cost seemed reasonable.
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Jul 31, 2020 21:47
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I’m doing a 40mi loop with my dog in the Lost Creek Wilderness outside of Deckers CO—about an hour NW of Colorado Springs. If we stay on schedule, we’d finish the hike Saturday afternoon. There appear to be some places to lay up short of the exit at the trailhead, but I have been considering just going on to the car. It’s a 12.5 hour drive back home, and I thought I might cut out some of the miles I have to drive on Sunday by looking for a car camping site (or some place with primitive camp sites just a few miles from the parking lot)—somewhere around Pueblo/Cañon City/Colorado City. Anyone have any suggestions?
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Aug 5, 2020 18:50
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LordAdakos posted:Going back out tomorrow for a quick weekend hike about an hour and a half from home. 8 hilly miles in, sleep, then around 8 miles out along a different route. Using a heavy-rear end loaner tent for the time being but gosh darn it I'm going to make the best of it. If you’re going to be somewhere with ticks, you can try a topical flea/tick prevention, just ask your vet which ones are safe to use if you’ve already given them one that’s included with your monthly heartworm (e.g. sentinel). I can’t say that it does much good at repelling them but maybe things would have been worse without it. Last time I went somewhere with a tick problem, I’m pretty sure I removed more than 100 ticks from my 2 dogs over 3 days. Bring a tick tool and good tweezers. I bring some over the counter meds: benedryl (1mg/lb per 8hrs), aspirin (5mg/lb per 12hrs), and hydrogen peroxide (1mL/lb) to induce vomiting. Filter water as much as you can for them, though you will probably be unable to completely stop them from drinking water if they come across it. I bring a second sawyer to screw on to a 1L water bladder and squirt it into their bowl. For a healthy and athletic dog, my biggest concern is their feet. Run/walk them on pavement as much as possible before the hike to toughen up their pads. I start applying tuf-foot to their pads 2 weeks prior to the trip to help with that as well. Strongly consider boots/shoes (ruffwear makes a good set) and spend time breaking them in, acclimating the dog to them, and checking for rubbing. Even if you don’t have them wear the shoes the entire time, it’s good to have the option to put one on if they tear a pad. Check their feet often.
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Aug 8, 2020 16:44
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Anyone with firsthand experience on the Wind River High Route with tips to share? Planning a trip for late July next year
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Dec 13, 2020 02:41
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Quiz posted:I've been eyeballing this (or another Wind River long loop) for a few years. I have to assume you've seen Andrew Skurka's page? It has links to other people's trip reports of the route. Yes, I’ve seen his page and plan to purchase his guide. My cousin is the one organizing the trip and he’s opted for an 8 day trip from 7/27-8/3. So right at late july early august—I am guessing we’re trying to thread the needle between bug pressure and the benefit of some snow still covering the talus. At this point I’m trying to determine what I want to do footwear and the pants situation. Andrew says you can do it in trail runners with maybe some microspikes, but I’m not sure I want the wet feet that will come along with it. I already own a pair of Solomon Quests and Altra Timps that I like, and I’m considering an approach shoe like the LaSportiva TX3s. Just really unsure on that one. Its a bit crazy I think, but I’m considering taking the boots AND one of the other pairs. My current pants for past trips in colorado and the sierras have been base layer, shorts with liners, and lightweight rain pants. That gives me a lot of flexibility but if I want bug protection on my legs while hiking in warmer daytime weather, I’m not sure just throwing on the rain pants over the shorts will work. If anyone has a recommendation for something relatively light, breathable, and unrestrictive to protect from bugs I’m all ears.
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Jan 8, 2021 18:21
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Drywall stilts
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Apr 20, 2021 03:40
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Pennywise the Frown posted:I have no problem finding hikes. I do have a problem finding areas I can just set up and camp wherever I want. If I could make a suggestion: find your car camping site, reserve it, then pack up all your poo poo and go hike with your backpacking load out. Go as many miles as you’re comfortable with. You were looking for something to fill your time, and there’s a certain zen to getting into your hiking rhythm and just taking in the scenery. During that time you can figure out what gear you like and don’t like, what works and what doesn’t. Are your shoes good? How’s the pack fit? If you have to stop and purify water, what’s that like? Is it easy or a pain in the rear end? Does anything hurt? How’s your cardio? Is the pack too heavy? What do you wish you had? What do you wish you’d left at home? What’s your pace—how many miles per hour do you average comfortably? When you get back to your campsite, get your tent set up and make camp like you’re backpacking. How’d that go? Was it fast and easy or long and frustrating? What stuff do you do first, what do you do last? I’ve done a lot of backpacking, I’m very familiar with my gear, and I always plan at least one shakedown hike to dial everything in like that before a big trip. I check all of those things and I make sure to hike the mileage I plan to do each day. After a long day like that, you might find it easier to fall asleep, even if your neighbors aren’t the quietest. Wake up in the morning, break camp (pay attention to how long that takes), and do it again if you want. If you get comfortable with all of that, you’ll be more confident to start planning backpacking trips to really get away from civilization for awhile. You’ll be able to plan it out because you’ll know your gear, your abilities, and your limitations.
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Apr 23, 2021 02:56
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It’s typically going to be along, and just off of, a trail because it’s either an actual designated trail or people have worn a path to it. You can also develop an eye for it once you’ve done it a few times because it either stands out from the surroundings in a few particular ways and/or you start to look around and think “that would be a badass place to set up a tent”...and sure enough, you weren’t the first person to have that thought.
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Apr 23, 2021 03:42
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Regular use of saline nasal spray to keep your nostrils moist and maybe take a mucolytic to loosen the snot up making it easier to blow out?
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Apr 24, 2021 15:46
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nate fisher posted:I run and mountain bike at several areas (they are very large, but they are what you would basically call an urban wilderness area) that hunters also use. When running one of the areas during hunting season it sounds like WW3 is going on. Since it is mostly hunting in a field surrounded by woods, I bet I have heard over a 100 gunshots on a run before. These are very close by for certain parts of the run, and I always worry about taking a random misplaced shot. I do try wear bright colors for when hunting is going on. These are most certainly bird hunters, probably dove season. They’re shooting shotguns up in the air. At worst you might get peppered with shot coming down if you’re on the perimeter of the field they’re hunting—typically without enough force to even break the skin. If you wear a pair of safety glasses you’ve mitigated your only real risk.
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May 11, 2021 00:17
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nate fisher posted:Yep they are bird hunters and I they know are a low risk. Still when you hear shotguns going off over and over it does give you pause. It certainly diminishes the experience. Just wanted to make sure you knew so you wouldn’t miss a day on the trail for no good reason—a ride or run on the trail, even with shotguns going off, is better than staying home in my opinion.
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May 11, 2021 18:27
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Another vote for the full size sawyer. I put it inline on my camelbak and it works great. Quick and easy refill. If I need filtered water I just pinch the bite valve into an empty Smart Water bottle.
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May 11, 2021 21:06
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 11:16 |
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I bought the Alta Timps to backpack for the toe box and fit at the arch. The drop didn’t take much to get used to but I don’t know that it really ‘did anything’ for me. I run those on the trail and recently got some Hokas for pavement because I wanted more cushion there. I can feel the difference between the two but I couldn’t tell you if one was better than the other. I actually kinda like alternating between them (about 20 mi/wk) because it engages different muscles which means some also get a rest. I agree on the return policy point. I just got a pair of the la sportiva gtx4 approach shoes and I’m really uncertain on sizing. The 12.5 fit great, but I don’t know if they have room to accommodate expected swelling. I took home some size 13 to try. Which is really just blowing my mind. Do they run small? I am actually a size 11 (L) and 11.5 (R). The 12.5 Altra Timps are perfect. The Hoka Rincons are fine at 11.5 since they’re only for running. The number shouldn’t matter if the fit is right but it just feels weird to be buying shoes that size. I’m glad I have a chance to really try them out.
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May 22, 2021 19:03
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