thru hiking the john muir trail

[stonefree]

i already have a bear vault i can almost fit all my food in there for 7 days, im not picky ill be eating oat meal and dried meals. i rebag them in zip lock bags to save room. ill be doing fishing when i can but ill be carring in most of what ill the whole trip. a will be getting a food drop from a family member on the trail.
whats the half way point n is there a place i can a food drop near there

[lori]

You are doing half the trip in seven days? Doesn't give you much time for enjoying the fishing. I hope you are aware that you will be doing multiple 9-10,000 foot high passes per day to manage that. It's a lot of elevation gain and loss every single day. We did Donohue Pass (11,000 feet) in a day and barely made it over. If you're doing the entire trail from Happy Isles I hope you already have a permit, they are difficult to come by....

You need to study the California fishing regs and get a license - there will be rangers on the trail. You'll need to know what you need to release, what lures you can use, and what you can keep (mostly browns and brooks which are not indigenous species).

I heard from someone that stashing a food drop is not cool with the forest service - you might ask about that. Part of the problem with the bears is people stash food in not-bear-proof containers and compound the problem by giving the habituated bears easy access to food.

[stonefree]

i have my permit
ill be doing close to 20 a day i plan on have 1 or 2 light days to enjoy myself. i was only given 2 weeks off from work for vactoin. i hike every other day with a 30 pound pack i feel ready, im doing The Silver Moccasin Trail as a test its ony 54 miles but it will give me feel for 20 miles a day

[Hawk-eye]

.....I haven't camped on the ground in several years, but I'd be prepared to if I were hiking the JMT. Hammocks are supposed to help enjoy the wilderness, not constrain us by limiting what we experience.

Blaspheming Hieratic!!!

Sounds like a burning at the stake is required!

[lori]

Well... good luck. If I were not able to hike at higher elevations each weekend, I would not feel up to doing even a week on the JMT with 10 mile days.

I strongly suggest doing more reading on people's trail journals. Also remember that there are stores and hiker boxes (where thru hikers drop off extra meals they are tired of, and sometimes spare gear like sporks or gloves) at the usual resupply spots. I think you will find your food needs change as you are on the trail longer.

Don't forget water treatment. Yosemite is one of the few places where the water does test positive for giardia, and with all the livestock and people on the JMT, I would not be surprised at all if that is true of the other streams/rivers along it.

[lori]

...and I just noticed you're doing it in June?

I hope you have some significant snow skills? There are a lot of high passes that will still be covered in it. Crampons and an ice axe, and the ability to use them without shredding your ankles or stabbing yourself on a self arrest, might be necessary particularly further south.

[stonefree]

dam really i dont even have an ax ill have to get
sounds fun though why is backpacking such expensive sport im sure crapons and ax will run me a few pretty pennies

[lori]

You can really hurt yourself with those... there's a reason I don't go that high til July/August, I don't want to buy gear like that, and then a class in using it so I don't stab myself fifty miles from any road and bleed out in the wilderness.

Keep doing your research and think about finding people to go with who have mountaineering skills to help you learn on the fly, if that's what you really insist on doing.

[enyapjr]

My 2 cents worth on some comments...
Your plan of 20 mile days in June is indeed ambitious, but it can be done - but 20 mile days will mean you must 'camp' wherever you happen to be at the end of the day, thus you might not be able to hammock every night - thus must have backup (groundcloth & pad) if you have to go to ground (sounds like you do)...
There is no sense in having an ice axe if you don't know how to use it - and it does absolutely no good if it's strapped to your pack at the 'wrong' time... It is more essential to recognize the potential dangers ahead of time and adjust your route and/or strategy for ascent/descent...
The 'secret' for the passes is to not be on them too early nor too late when they might have icy crust surface conditions - yet if you go up too late in the day, one can have much postholing which is very tiring and time consuming...
Forget the fishing - it's nice for a 'camping' trip, but your itinerary makes your trip all about the hiking and making miles...
Instead of reading JMT journals, might I suggest you read PCT journals instead - though the majority go nobo, their normal high Sierra time is June (read 2005 & 2006 for high snow years - 'worst case' scenario)...
The Sierra snowpack really isn't extreme this year, only near average to slightly above - and it's a long time until June - the spring temps will dictate what June is like... See <http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/swcchart.action>, look at the 'Central' & 'South' charts for the Sierra from Tahoe area to southern Sierra (and can compare to previous years, also)...
Caching food is verboten, but meeting someone is not - but you might pick up some supplies at Reds Meadow (Mammoth if the bus is running) or VVR, a good 'meeting' point is to have your friend come in over Kearsarge (or you go out to them - Kearsarge is a beautiful trail!)... On a long trek 'hiker hunger' doesn't usually set in until 3 weeks or more, so you shouldn't need excessive amounts of food - select foods high in calories per ounce...
Sorry, gotta get back to work! That's all for now...
Good luck & enjoy the journey!

Happy trails!!!
Jim (PITA)

[stonefree]

thanks jim
i will just have to get there n see for myself. ill just be prepared as possible and wing it. my friend will be going in a tent so ill just bunk with her when cant hang
i almost have everything i need just got to pick up my jetboil