Tag Archives: John Muir Trail

In 2013 I went backpacking on the John Muir Trail, a beautiful (albeit long) hike through the Sierra Nevada mountain range… and I brought my Tenkara rod.     You can see the rod on the side of my pack in a rod sock (that light brown sleeve).     …

There are two things every adventurer needs to be equipped for when venturing into the backcountry: Number 1: The Tools to purify water Number 2: The Tools to go to the bathroom While we’ve dealt with number 1 in other articles, it’s time to deal with number 2. It’s essential to reduce …

Ok, it took us 16 days, but if you want to see that trip condensed down to just 5 and a half minutes then this is the post for you. Over the next few months I plan to put together a series of posts on preparing for the trail, so …

        Nervous tension as we got up for an easy 13 miles to Guitar Lake. The terrain had changed yet again and there was so much to see as we approached the cliffs of insanity (a.k.a. Mt. Whitney). The weather turned bad yet again as cloud came …

It was round about this time that the finality of the trip started to set in. There were less than 50 miles left to go, and although are bodies were ready for them, I don’t think our minds were.   We crossed Glenn Pass and then stormed up the ascent …

Weather was fickle. We were really put to the test when a monsoonal front came through and hit us all hard. Despite choosing our sites fairly well, rain water pooled everywhere and some was even driven up between the fly and the inner tent. 2 of the 3 tents survived …

Leaving the Muir Trail Ranch was the turning point for the weather. From there it just kept getting more and more challenging. The Muir Pass was the first real rain and it got worse. The views continued to be excellent, despite of the whales lurking around every corner and the …

After an early start we headed out on the trail through some more amazing scenery. Check out the photos and video down below.   One of the many fish caught on the trail. This was another nice fellow that I ended up letting go. Nothing like repacking a bear canister …

Things really kicked in on the trip as we pushed 18+ miles on day 3 past Devil’s Postpile into Tulley’s Hole. Yet more scenery to wow!   It was hard to believe the contrast between this area and over the ridge to Devil’s Postpile. Devil’s Postpile National Monument was probably …

For the past year I’ve been organizing a hike of the John Muir Trail with a group of social media enthusiasts. The trip finally started with three of the original 6 on July 13th. After waiting for person number until midday, we took off up the trail towards Donahue Pass. …

To help get in as many miles of the John Muir Trail that weren’t on the group permit, Adam and I decided to hike from Yosemite to Tuolomne on  an alternative route that brought us onto the JMT at about mile 8 (at Sunrise Lakes). In two days we did …

After submitting and resubmitting our application (waiting for the fax machine on their end not to be busy) all afternoon, I finally received a “success” message at  2 or 3 in the morning and waited painstakingly over the weekend for the permit office to get back to me, hopefully telling …