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Old 09-11-2002, 06:53 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Posts: 455
How I infiltrated the Sierra Club- 25 days on the John Muir Trail

In my search to find ever cheaper ways to get around on my road trip I have finally taken up backpacking. All of my camping gear was backpacking oriented, so all that was left to do was to buy a backpack and start walking.

I started out with several 2 and 3 day trips in Yosemite National Park in my quest to escape the summer crowds that make the place seem more like the city than the outdoors. I quickly discovered that the wilderness permit to allow backcountry camping is free... parking is free... This is my kind of trip! All I pay for is food, and I probably would have been eating anyways. So the first trips go really well but they were short out-and-back trips. I get more adventurous and ride the shuttle bus from Touolomne Meadows to Yosemite Valley to walk back. I gave myself 4 days to walk the 26 miles, including a side trip to Half Dome.



I join the teeming masses of the summit, then finish the rest of the walk back to Touolomne Meadows in my alotted time. All the while I am thinking about the John Muir Trail, which I am using the first leg of to make my little 26 mile hike. After Touolomne Meadows, the JMT continues on for another 200 miles through several wilderness areas until it reaches the summit of Mount Whitney. I think to myself, "self, you may not ever have another chance to spend close to a month just walking, and you are well conditioned to the high elevation of the hike due to spending the last 2 months in the mountains and carrying a heavy pack for the past 2 weeks and this is the best time of the year doing this particular trail, so what the heck is stopping you?" Well, the wilderness permit for one thing. So I walk over to the wilderness permit office, conveniently located in Touolomne meadows and ask for a permit.

{to be continued, I'm getting kicked out of the Mammoth Lakes library because they are closing }

snip... at the interntet cafe

So the ranger says, "well I can't give you a permit for today... how about tomarrow?"

So I am on my way, 8 days worth of food in my pack to (hopefully) get me to my resupply point at Lake Edison, where I mailed another 12 days of food to (hopefully) get me through the last 140 miles of trail. Soon after leaving the dayhike crowd behind in Yosemite, I find a more peaceful, barrenly beautiful alpine world.



A land populated by strange and interesting creatures... and people.





With strange sights...


Sometimes, all I had was a cold, rocky place to put my tent at the end of the day...


Othertimes, the accomodations were already there.


But the scenery (and the elevation) always left me breathless.

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