Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Am I an addict???

My free time has been given over to planning my trip.  I wake up in the middle of the night and I am thinking about the trail.  Hi, my name is Jay, and I am a trail addict. I imagine I am not alone in my growing obsession with the trail.  With still over 5 months to go before I need something to do to help the time to go faster, and as I said before I love to plan.  I came across a great JMT trip planner program (Excel file) through the Yahoo! JMT group. It allows you to enter your campsite (based on Elizabeth Wink’s book) then calculates your daily mileage, elevation gain and loss. It is even customizable to your departure date, and will give you the sunrise and set time each day. A big thanks to its creator!

Currently it looks like I am going to be doing the trail in 18 days.  I am trying to get one of my permits changed to be able to leave a day early which would give me a 19 day trip.  The longer the better! It will be nice to be able to take it slow at the beginning and enjoy the trail.  The only fixed date I have is to get to Muir Trail Ranch 8 days before I finish, due to the amount of supplies that I am sending there. Using the Yahoo! Planner I have come up with the following plan:

Day
Daily Mileage
Campsite
1
4.4
Little Yosemite Valley CG
2
13.4
Lower Cathedral Lake
3
11.7
NW Evelyn Junction*
4
13.8
Thousand Island Lakes
5
12.2
N. of Minert Creek Crossing
6
9.2
N. of Deer Creek Crossing*
7
11.8
Lake Virginia
8
11.1
Quail Meadows
9
15.5
Sallie Keys Lakes
10
5.7
MTR South Cut-Off*
11
9.0
Evolution Valley Area
12
13.2
North Evolution Lake+
13
16.0
Upper Palisade Lake
14
16.1
Sawmill Pass Trail
15
10.3
Sixty Lakes Junction
16
18.2
Tyndal Creek
17
11.6
Guitar Lake
18
13.07
Lone Pine Hotel

                                                                       *Resupply                               + possible zero day




Even as I put this plan down in type, I wonder if I will actually stick to it once I hit the trail.  The best laid plans of mice and men and all.  It is a good way to pass the time, but I hate to think that I am going to be so rigid that I will not take advantage of opportunities when they arise out on the trail

2 comments:

  1. Hi thanks for the great info. Joined the yahoo group but unsure of which JMT planner to use.
    Bill

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  2. That's very exciting, I have seen similar planners, but this one sounds very promising. I completely understand the mental journey you are on, I am going through similar visions and I still have over a year.

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