New hikers - John Muir Trail

imported
#1

Hi me and some friend are considering hiking the JMT in augost-september. i have some questions it will be helpfull if you can answer me:
1.how long does it take to walk the whole trail ? 2.what are the arangments for sleeping on the trail(tent,shelters)? do you need any permits for outdoor camping?
3.how often can you get water and food on the trail(and how much do i need to carry on me)?
4.do you need any permits to enter the national parks and how much it cost?
5.how can you get to the begining of the trail? thank you
p.s sorry for the bad English i’m a tourist

hadar

#2

  1. Anything between 5 days and 5 weeks, but the standard is something around 15-25 days. I did it in 16-1/2, fairly lightweight. I’m usually not all that fast, but we were in a hurry that time. If you’re young(ish) and in good shape, i’d plan for 3 full weeks, then you might find it takes you a little less.

  2. There is one permit for the whole trail. That covers everything. Most permits are reserved far in advance, but if you can’t get one reserved, show up at the Yosemite wilderness permit office anyway. They do issue some walk-up permits. You may have to wait a day, but you’re in a great place to wait a day anyway. Once you have your permit, you sleep anywhere. No shelters. Tent or tarp. Almost the entire trail is within a couple miles of a good place to camp.

  3. Water is a lot of places. You’ll need maps (google Tom Harrison JMT maps), and those will show your stream crossings. Food is typically resupplied at some or all of these places:

Tuolumne Meadows store and post office
Red’s Meadow store (and they accept packages for a fee)
Vermillion Valley Resort (same options as Red’s)
Muir Trail Ranch accepts packages. High fee, but well-located. You also may find lots of free food here in their leftover hiker boxes. It’s hard to count on it, but you very well could resupply for free here.

All of these places are in the first half of the trail, if you’re going southbound, which you’ll want to. From there, you either have to carry a ton, maybe 10-days worth, maybe less, or you’ll have to pick an exit trail to go to a town and resupply. The most common place to do this is the Kearsarge Pass Trail to Independence, and then to Bishop if necessary. It’s a great trail. This adds a day, at least, to the trip, but means you’re carrying way less food.

  1. All just the one permit.
  2. Aw man, you need to read up more! There is a bus that goes from Merced to Yosemite. There’s i think a train and a bus to Merced from different places, including L.A. Where are you coming from? There used to be a great web page that detailed all the access routes and buses, but it’s not there anymore. the Yosemite bus is called YARTS, if that helps.

It’s worth the trouble, just expect it to be hard! :cheers

markv

#3

thanks man!
i’m traveling with hadar and we want to know some more about the permit…
where do i issue the permit? is there any chance to get a permit for august-September this late?
and if i cant reserve a permit, what are the chances to get a first come-first served one in Yosemite? i’m asking cause we are traveling from abroad and we wouldn’t want our plans to be to risky… (it will be great to hear that everyone can get a permit the day they come or a day after, if you know what i mean… :oh )

thanks again!

aviad

#4

The Park Service holds back 40% of the permits for walk ups the day before. So of the ten Happy Isles/Sunrise pass through permits allotted for each day, four are held back for the walk ups. The same percentage holds for all the JMT trailheads out of the valley.

Your bigger problem will be finding lodging/camping in the park while you’re waiting to get the permits. Here is the reservation site, http://www.yosemitepark.com/Reservations.aspx. If the park sites are all booked, I’ve read on this forum that you might be able to just camp in one of the campgrounds without a reservation. Just keep a low profile and a clean camp; the rangers may leave you alone if they know you’re waiting for a permit.

I’m starting the JMT from the valley on August 19th. I’m an old guy; you’ll probably catch me somewhere down the trail.

Dr J

Photofall/MrClean

#5

Yes, Yosemite National Park Wilderness office issues the permits. With two people think you can be really sure of getting a walk-up permit for that day or the next day, as long as you get to the office a couple of hours before they open and be sure you’re first in line. Your worst case scenario is that they will tell you they have a permit for a different entry point, like Tuolumne Meadows. Then you take the park shuttle to the different entry point and hike from there instead.

I thought there was a backpackers camp set aside in Yosemite Valley, but is that only if you ALREADY have your permit in hand?

markv

#6

thanks a lot!

but i was thinking… if i dont want to rely on a walk-in permit, can i apply for another permit (for example, “yosemite falls” trailhead permit), and once i’m done there just join the JMT?
is it acceptable? will i be fined?

p.s
sadly enough we are five people, so i’m afraid the walk-is permit we be hard to get…

aviad

#7

Oh, yeah with 5 people it’ll take some luck. To answer your new question, someone correct me if i’m wrong, but your entry permit is good for however many days you want it for. There must be SOME limit, but i think it’s very long. Your only problem would be the Whitney Zone. Unless you get the very difficult Whitney permit or a JMT permit, you’re not supposed to go up on Whitney, and around there they do pretty often check and even fine people. If you’re not particular about summitting Whitney, you could exit at Horseshoe Meadows or Kearsarge or really anywhere.

Or you could avoid the whole Yosemite entry problem by starting from a point just south of the JMT, like the Cottonwood Pass trail, climbing Whitney from the west with a daypack for the sunrise and then getting down off the mountain early, and then continue north to eventually EXIT at Yosemite. Then your permits are easy and you cover everything. It just takes a couple extra days of hiking, and it might be slightly harder to get to your southern trailhead.

markv

#8

now i’m confused… what’s a JMT permit and how do i get it?
and thanks again for everything, you certainly gave me some information to think about…

aviad

#9

You will have to get a permit at the trailhead at this point and it will be VERY hard to get five. I would suggest having to people start at Yosemite and three at Tuolumne a day later and plan on meeting somewhere. Once you get a permit it does not matter how long it takes you to finnish the permit is for the whole hike. The rangers at the permit office are all dicks from my experience so plan on getting dicked around by them but do not give up. I constantly got bad info from rangers and good info from other employees or other hikers. Don’t stress it will all work out with a little paitence.

Big B

#10

A JMT permit is the permit you need to hike the JMT. You get it from Yosemite National Park, which is a very crowded place to start from.

A normal non-JMT wilderness permit is issued for the place you start your hike, no matter how long you hike and where you exit. EXCEPT you can’t exit at Mt. Whitney (the end of the JMT) unless your permit says “Whitney Zone”, which the JMT permit does. This means you have 2 issues: a starting point that you can get 5 permits for, and Mt. Whitney.

So that’s why i suggested doing the JMT backwards, starting from the entry just south of Whitney. That way, you don’t need a Whitney Zone stamp, and you’re starting from an entry point that isn’t as overcrowded, so you’ll probably still be able to reserve a permit.

By the way, most people start from Yosemite and go south because it’s nasty to start your hike with a ton of food in your pack, climbing 9000’ up Mt. Whitney. If you start one entry point south of Whitney, you still have a ton of food, but you don’t have a difficult climb.

markv