The Adventure

About the trip:  We hiked 200 miles in 24 days from Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park to Whitney Portal in Lone Pine, CA.  While on our trip we had two layover days, two nights in a lodge and two showers.  We saw a bear, deer, marmots, bugs, birds and squirrels.  There were beautiful wildflowers -- sky pilots, tiger lilies, angelica, penny royal, currants, mountain heather, bilberry and bush lupine.  The trees were amazing as well -- lodgepole pine, foxtail pine, white bark pine and quaking aspen to name a few.

We hiked over ten major passes ranging from a low elevation of 8,300 feet at Island Pass to a high elevation of 13,180 at Forester Pass.  The hardest passes were Mather, Selden and Donahue.  The easiest pass was Muir Pass.

We spent lots of time reading; we made it through 13 books each.  The journal writing did not go so well, we were a little too exhausted to keep that up.  We played cards a lot and when the weather was nice we spent time swimming and sunning along beautiful (yet cold) rivers and streams.

Allison and Maren playing Speed

Cameron engrossed in "Shiver"

On the food side of things we probably ate over 100 Luna Bars of many different flavors (we do not want to eat them anytime soon).  We will likely stay away from bagged tuna and we may never eat oatmeal again.  We found out that Shot Bloks come in caffeinated, decaffeinated and half-calf. Allison and David both told us we should stay away from the caffeinated variety--not sure why! Maren's favorite dinner was the homemade macaroni and cheese with bread crumbs; Cameron's was chicken noodle soup with dumplings; David like the mini-ravioli's with veggies and Allison liked the stuffing with chicken. Andie's smurf chocolate and the delivered root beer were welcome favorites.

No more oatmeal!

We spent a lot of time filtering water.  At first we did not mind it because it allowed us to take breaks.  After a while we got sick of having to filter water.  Allison did not filter her water so we were a bit jealous that she could put her cup right under a little water fall and drink it straight.  The water tasted good and it was always nice and cold out of the creeks and streams.

Happily Filtering Water Day 1

We helped feed a hungry 17 year old boy who was hiking with his dad.  He was only given one bar a day so we gave him quite a few bars and tuna.  There was also a starving man from Wales and we gave him more tuna, oatmeal, and a smashed Luna Bar.  Both hikers were very thankful for the food. Most of the hikers going north along the Pacific Coast Trail looked alike, with khaki or tan shirts, shorts or pants with a wide-brimmed hat, a beard and walking poles.

Most days we hiked around nine miles (ranging from 5 to 13 miles on days we hiked) and we were usually ascending or descending several thousand feet each day. There is not much flat terrain along the John Muir Trail.  It is estimated by the USGS that we ascended 42,000' and descended 38,000' on the trail. The high point is Mount Whitney at 14,505' and the low point was around 7800'.  Most of the trail is crushed granite with many granite steps and some stretches with pumice gravel. We had one night hike, which we both loved!  One day we hiked in rain and hail (on our descent from Mt. Whitney).

Allision talked with us a lot about "Leave No Trace."  Leave No Trace means that you pack up everything you bring and make it look like a human has not been in the area.  When you leave your campsite it should look like you never visited.  We helped pick up some small trash along the way; we are sure at some point a small wrapper dropped out of our bags.  Hopefully someone will return the favor and pick up anything we might have missed.

Pictures:  We have about 1,500 pictures from our trip.  Unfortunately,  Maren's camera broke during the start of the Evolution Valley segment.  For five days we were not able to take pictures. Everyone was really bummed about the broken camera.  For our trip to Mt. Whitney we were sent with a camera and a disposable camera just to make sure that we could get pictures on the top. David and Allison were both really great about snapping away!

Problems:  Fortunately, we never had a major problem.  A couple of nights we were cold. Cameron got sick on the first part of the trip and needed antibiotics.  She rallied and never had a problem once the antibiotics kicked in.  Maren lost her first pair of sunglasses, found a new pair, lost them and then found another pair.  The final pair had only one arm.  David dropped a water bottle cap in a fast flowing creek and never saw it again.  The filter bag blew away (it does get gusty at high elevations).  Allison melted the plastic part on the Jet Boil.  The camera lens refused to come out. Really big bummer.  Cameron had lots of blisters but found the mole foam worked pretty well. Maren had two blisters but they quickly turned to calluses. Cameron scraped up her shin while crossing a river and Maren face planted on the trail and got a bloody lip.

Creek and river crossings were amazingly easy since we received hardly any snow last winter. The crossings were a highlight of our trip.  We never had a scary water crossing which was really nice.  We did go over one swinging suspension bridge that you had to go one person at a time. Maren really enjoyed swinging on the bridge and thinking how her mom would not like to be on the bridge with her.  Cameron swung a little bit and was excited to get across.

We met a lot of nice hikers on the trail.  Some were a little different; but overall it was a really good experience.  We started the trail with Gary and Lydia and saw them throughout most of our trip.  We hope they had a great rest of their hike.  We shared a campsite with a dad and his two sons who came in late one night and they left us with candy the next morning.  Gary told us cool ghost stories one night and a gentleman named Buck showed us how to stack up wood on a fire perfectly.  One older couple called us --  "BAC -- Bad Ass Chicks".  With some people Allison would remind us we did not have to tell them where we were camping for the night.  We saw more and more people as we travelled South.

While we got some attention hiking with David, we got a lot more hiking with Allison.  Most people were amazed she was able to carry her huge pack, aka Jumbo.  Many hikers thought Allison had the biggest pack on the trail.  Most people were confused about our all girl group.  They were not sure if we were sisters, friends, or just really crazy people.  One person even thought Allison was our mom which we all thought was really funny.  Allison liked the thought that we were our own Girl Scout Troupe.  On many backpacking trips Allison has seen Boy Scout Troupes.  She had always wanted to see a Girl Scout Troupe out in the wilderness.  It was pretty cool being an all girl group for part of the trip.

Hygeine is definitely harder on the trail.  We washed each others hair as often as we could and swam as much as possible to clean up.  On days that it was cold it was really hard to spend a lot of time cleaning up.  We brought deodorant which is kinda of funny.  At some points along the trail we looked really great.  At other times it was a little shocking to see what we looked like.  At the end our hair was a bit matted and we had dirt all over our hands, legs and face.  It was really great to get a shower once we got off the trail.

Maren brought her small iPod which was really great because we were able to listen to Justin Bieber's new album "Believe."  We totally recommend the new album, it is great!  It helped us hike up Silver Pass which was really nice.  Unfortunately, one third of the way through the trip the battery died.  No more Bieber for us : (

Companions:  We all got a long really well.  We are still really good friends and enjoyed each others company for the majority of the trip.  Allison and David were really fun to be with too.  We admittedly were somewhat difficult at times in the morning.  We liked to sleep in and David and Allison liked to get up early in the morning.  Allison's dad Art thinks this is really funny because he had a really hard time getting Allison up in the morning when they skied the John Muir Trail in the winter.  We might have been a bit grumpy occasionally, but that is to be expected, right?

Sleeping Away!

How hard is the John Muir Trail?  On a scale of 1 to 10 we though the John Muir Trail was about a 6.5. to 7 on a difficulty level.  The hardest part is hiking up the passes and not stopping.  As far as the elevation goes, we never really had a problem.  Allison made us hike really fast on the final ascent to Mt. Whitney (she was worried about lightening) and Maren told her she was having a hard time breathing.  Other than that it never bothered us.

We are really glad we hiked the John Muir Trail.  It was fun, with some difficult points.  We will never forget our trip together.  We would definitely recommend others hiking the Trail.  Good luck and have fun!