Getting Closer Everyday

I dreamed of the trail last night.  Well not the trail actually, but the night before getting on the trail.   I was at the house of a trail angle with a bunch of other hikers, as we made one final check of our gear before heading out in the morning.  In my dream I meet a lot of the people that I had been chatting with through Facebook and the Yahoo! Group.  Spirits were high and everyone was laughing and joking with each other.  It was such a positive and supportive place.  As I woke from this dream, I found myself actually trying to force myself back into the dream, as I was not ready to leave it yet. 

Hardly a night goes by without me looking into some aspect of my trip; looking at maps, re-evaluating my gear and food lists, looking for chargers for my phone, searching for undiscovered JMT websites or Youtube! videos…  I hope I am not alone in this; that I have not turned into an obsessive person.  I think, for me it is more of a way to help pass the time until I actually fly out for this grand adventure.  And for me it is a grand adventure!

Many people have said to me that this is a trip of a “lifetime”.  I hope that this is not the case.  A trip of a lifetime to me is a onetime thing; an event never to be exceeded.  My hope that this is just the start of many great adventures to come.  As I look back at the things I have done in my life, I do not see many great adventures yet.  There have been a few like volunteering at Chena River State Recreation Area in Alaska, before my junior year of college, moving from Ohio to Colorado, and of course parenthood (this is the true “lifetime” adventure).  Most of my exploits have been relatively short, 3-4 days in length at most. This trip will be my catalyst to more adventures (or a good reason to take up golf if I end up hating long distance backpacking).  While this trip will be solo, the future ones must include my family. 

This trip will prove to me that I can undertake such grand adventures, but for me to fully enjoy it, I want to share it with my family (I am already planning a 2019 JMT hike with the full family.  My son should be old enough to make it by then).  One Bbog that I really like is The Big Outside by Michael Lanza. In this blog he shares his stories of experiencing the natural world with his family.  If you have kids and have not checked it out I highly recommend it.

Until next time ... HIKE ON!!!!!

“Don't be afraid of your fears. They're not there to scare you. They're there to let you know that something is worth it.” 
― C. JoyBell C.

One of the most reoccurring questions that I get asked when I tell people about my trip on the JMT is “who’s going with you?” Most seem quite shocked when I tell them that I am going alone? Is it because they cannot imagine me going alone or themselves? Afterwards come the questions: What if you get hurt? Won’t you get lonely? What about the bears and mountain lions?

To be honest I am afraid, but my fear does not come from wild animals or wild people, but rather from my doubt about my ability to actually finish the trail.  As I prepare for this hike I have little doubt that I will be able to do it.  Finishing simply boils down to putting one foot in front of the other; one step at a time; day after day.  However, in the back of my mind there is a little voice that keeps asking “but, what if….” 

I have been dreaming of doing a long trail for over 20 years, and now that I am finally getting the chance to do one, I cannot help but wonder if I have the mental toughness to actually be successful.  Can I actually get up day after day and put one foot in front of the other and enjoy the moment, rather than worry about what is up ahead?  Will being away from my wife and son for longer than I have ever been before mentally beat me down? 

It is not the unknown trail that puts fear into me, but rather the doubt and fear of my own unknown self.  Do I have what it takes to live up to the image that I have constructed of myself in my own mind’s eye?  What if I do not?  How will this change me as a person and my own belief about myself and my own abilities?

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

Travel Logisitcs

Logistics are coming along well.  I made flight and hotel reservation this week.  The plan is to fly into Reno, then take the Eastern Sierra Transit Authority bus from the Reno airport to Lee Vining.  I’ll spend the night at Lee Vining and then catch the YARTS bus the next morning to Tuolumne Meadows. I plan on catching the first bus of the day, which will give me a 2 hour layover in Tuolumne Meadows before the bus leaves for Yosemite Valley.  I plan to use those 2 hours to check in with the Wilderness Rangers to see if there are any same day or next day’s permits available out of Happy Isles to Little Yosemite Valley or beyond.  If there are, I will jump back on the bus to the valley.  If no permits are available I will probably spend the night at the backpacker’s campground in Tuolumne Meadows, then head to the Valley the next day.

I looked at the possibility of taking the ESTA bus all the way into Mammoth and spending my first night there.  My thought was that I would be able to hand deliver my resupply package to Red’s Meadow, and save a little money.  But the reality is that the cost of lodging in Mammoth would be at least double of the money that I would say.  Plus the timing would be a little tight to make all the public transportation to and from Red’s Meadow once in Mammoth.

Trying to keep up my routine of getting to the gym 5-6 days a week.  Usually 2 of those days are spent in a lifting class (Body Pump) and the other days are divided between running on the treadmill, stair climber with a weighted pack and a spin class.  Not sure how well these workouts will actually transfer to the trail, but it is much better than sitting on the couch and eating Bon Bons.  I need to get outside!  I am starting to get a little cabin fever being at the gym so much.  

It's Official!!

I GOT IT! A Happy Isle to Little Yosemite Valley permit for July 15th, 2014. My hike is officially a-go. I feel like a big weight has been lifted, and I can breath easier. I am feeling very fortunate, after ready many forums and blogs, I started to worry if I would be able to get a reservation for the day I wanted.  I have read numerous stories about people trying 3 or 4 or more days in a row and getting rejected each time.  Going solo gave me a big leg up I guess.  It it easier to slide one person into a spot, than try to find an open reservation for two or more. However, I did not get my permit on my first try, nor my first choice of permit options this time.

Sunday night I braved an incoming snow storm to get to FedEx Office in order to fax in my reservation form.  It took only a minute to fax it in, but another 15 hours before I got my answer: "Thank you for your reservation request. We are sorry to inform you that your wilderness permit reservation request has been rejected for all choices listed. Your requested trailhead is full or we do not have space for a group of your size." Crushed! That was how I felt. How could I not get my permit?  I knew it was not a for sure thing, but I had a feeling that I would be one of the few lucky ones. The ones that actually got their permit the first time. O.K. time to come up with plan B.  I knew I would be back at FedEx tonight sending in another request, but what if I got rejected again?

From somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered reading a trip report where they had started their JMT hike with a Happy Isle to Illiloute permit.  From what I could remember from their report it was not that bad, it just added a couple of extra miles (with an out and back from the actual trail).  With over 211 miles of hiking waiting for me, what would a couple or more miles early on matter? So I searched the net for information on this option and found out that is was a viable option.  My thought was that if I could at least get this permit, I would hopefully be able to upgrade once I got in the Valley.  I quickly typed up a new permit request and faxed it in from work. And then I waited... again!  By the time I left work I had not heard back from the pack service, so once again I went back to FedEx to fax my request for July 15th.  

I think I checked my email every 5 to 10 minutes this morning. By 1 o'clock I was starting to worry as I had not heard anything on either permit request. I tried to call the park reservations to ask a question about the Illiloute option (how far down the trail I had to go before I could camp) and maybe see if I could find out about the status of either request.  After numerous busy signals, I talked to a very friendly and helpful woman who told me I would have to hike about 3 miles off the JMT before I could camp. When I asked her if it was easier for me to fax in my request or do it over the phone, she said she could do it over the phone.  I then mentioned my request for the Illiloute option yesterday, and that I had not heard back about it or today's request either.  She was nice enough and looked into both, and it turns out I now have 2 permits:  the Illiloute option from yesterday and I had gotten my second choice request from today. She asked me which one I wanted to keep, and I decided to keep both for now; at least until I have a little more time to compare my 2 options.

Now all I have to do is patiently wait another 168 days.

In the Beginning

I have made one previous trip to Yosemite. The second summer I knew my wife (2002) we took our first real road trip together, which we started with several days in Yosemite National Park. One of my goals of this trip was to hike up Half Dome. At this time no permit was required to hike half dome. We took the first shuttle bus of the day to the trailhead and headed out.

This turned out to be my longest hike to date, almost 17 miles. My memory of the hike in is a bit blurry; the only thing that really sticks out in my mind was what I called the “never ending forest”. I never thought I would get out of it. My wife made it to just below the cables, before she decided she had gone far enough, as she is not a lover of heights. As I went up the cables she took a nice nap, waking to find a coyote napping just 10 feet from her at one point. 

The view from the top of Half Dome filled me with joy. I had spent many years rock climbing and to me Yosemite, and especially Yosemite Valley, had always been hallowed ground. Being and Environmental Science major in college, I spent many hours reading John Muir so to finally be there was a very special moment in my life.

On this trip I think I am going to bypass the trip up Half Dome. Part of me says “Been there, done that”, but more importantly I only have so many days complete this hike. While Half Dome only adds 4 miles or so to the trip, I think it will tire me out more than I want to be during my first couple of days. Next time through  the JMT, when I bring my wife and son here with me, and take 3 weeks to complete it, we’ll all take the detour together.

Hike On!

And then there was a plan

It took me a good 2 to 3 weeks to work up the nerve to tell my wife that I needed to hiked the John Muir Trial (JMT) next summer, and ask for her blessing to go. Let me say right off the bat that my wife is a wonderful and supporting person. But asking her to let me leave home, and our 4 year old son for 3 weeks, was asking a lot of anyone. It is hard enough to keep the house and family going with 2 of us, but to put all the responsibility on her, well that might be too much. Without even a flinch she quickly gave her blessing (I hope it was not too easy a decision for her, to be without me for 3 weeks).

“Need” to hike the JMT? Yes! All of us build up an image of ourselves and what we hope we are or can be. But until we test that image we never know if it is truly what or who we are. I have an image of myself as a hiker. While I have done numerous backpacking trips over the years, I do not feel that I have ever truly pushed myself to see if I have the right hiker stuff. For years hiking the Appalachian Trail has been on my bucket list (and still is). One of the best pieces of advice I got was to set a date for my hike, even if it was 10 years in the future and work towards that goal. Several years ago I set 2015 as the year I would hike the AT. However, as the day/year has drawn nearer the reality has also become clearer. There is no practical way I can escape the real world for the 6 months that it will take me to hike the AT. But 3 weeks, now that is doable.

I teach, so I have the summers off, while still getting paid. So if I can manage to save up a little money beforehand there will not be a major financial cost to our family. During part of the time I am gone I think I can talk grandma and grandpa into coming for a visit to help my wife with our little one. This may also provide chance for my wife and son to fly out to visit her parents in Texas. Her parents are great so I do not mind visiting, but Texas in the middle of summer… I’ll happily pass on that trip.

Now that the seed has been laid, it’s time to tend to them and let them grow and flourish. My hope it that I do not ramble too much here, but what can I say I am a Trial Journal junkie. I hope to be able to feed the dreams of others of on here, as many other journals have feed mine and kept my dreams alive and going.


Hike On!!