Jim weighs the advantages and disadvantages of going solo or with others on his John Muir Trail backpack. Practicalities mean he "goes it alone" for most of the more-than-200-mile trek. Early on he decides that one way to combat loneliness is to chat up the occasional hiker he meets in the backcountry.
His first segment is a 25-mile day hike from Yosemite Valley to Tuolumne Meadows, with nearly 6000 feet of elevation gain. It's a long day with unexpected encounters and a major mishap.
Jim weighs the advantages and disadvantages of going solo or with others on his John Muir Trail backpack. Practicalities mean he "goes it alone" for most of the more-than-200-mile trek. Early on he decides that one way to combat loneliness is to chat up the occasional hiker he meets in the backcountry.
His first segment is a 25-mile day hike from Yosemite Valley to Tuolumne Meadows, with nearly 6000 feet of elevation gain. It's a long day with unexpected encounters and a major mishap.
Speaker 1:
Flowing Water Fragrant Mountains is a podcast series chronicling the hiking expedition which J im Zumberge undertook in the summer of 2019. It is a collaboration between Jim and his son Thomas. That's me. Episode one: Wherever Life Takes Me.
Speaker 2:
I first visited California’s Sierra Nevada mountains as a high schooler in the summer of 1970, when I spent several weeks camping, climbing, and backpacking there with friends. The experience was a major reason I decided to move to the state after finishing college. Although I have been to the Sierra dozens of times over several decades, the trips have typically been short, a long weekend maybe. Recently I saw a short film about a 60-year-old woman and her daughter, trekking through rugged mountains in British Columbia in the dead of winter. That motivated me to at least attempt something more ambitious than a couple/few nights of backpacking. For me, the John Muir Trail, a multi-week backpack in the Sierra, seemed to be something within my reach. I spent many hours preparing, months in advance. I wanted to bring enough food, clothing, and shelter to keep me safe and reasonably comfortable, but not so much to make my pack uncomfortably heavy. I considered what month would be best. Earlier in the summer can mean more reliable water and stunning wildflower displays. It can also mean hazardous stream crossings and hordes of mosquitoes. Later in the season, on the other hand, brings shorter days and potentially colder and harsher weather. It can also bring beautiful colors, more solitude, and less snow to contend with. In the end, because of how the JMT permit system works, I“took what I got”: start September 11 at Tuolumne Meadows, exit(no later than) September 30 at Whitney Portal. Another major decision in JMT planning is whether to“go it alone” or“go with a group”. I applied for a 3-person JMT permit. My reasoning was that, of the half dozen or so persons I know well enough to consider having them join me, there might be one or two who could actually have found the time to do it. I sent an email to friends, hoping that some would join me for a segment or part of a segment. I noted that anyone who started with me at Tuolumne wouldn’t need to get their own permit. None of my close backpacker friends were available for the beginning of the trip, but a group of three did join me about halfway in for a 50-mile segment. So, while most of my adventure was solo, I got to experience both“go it alone” and“go with a group”. What concerned me most about going by myself was the risk of sustaining a serious injury while alone on the trail– stumbling and suffering a debilitating sprain, or falling into a stream by losing balance on a log crossing. Getting lost or off route was another concern. I mitigated the risks by doing my best to pay attention, especially at water crossings and trail junctions. I also choose to camp near enough to the trail so that my tent could be seen by passers-by. I decided to carry a satellite beacon device, with an SOS button that I could press in the case of a life-threatening emergency. In retrospect, though, I’m surprised that I didn’t think about loneliness itself as a major downside of traveling solo. Well, it was! My satellite device had a GPS tracking capability and my whereabouts could be shared with others. A good friend and knowledgeable hiker, Jon, volunteered to keep tabs on me that way. The device also allowed me to send normal text messages to persons, without the need for cell phone coverage. Nearly all of the JMT is without coverage. I would send my wife a“safe arrival” text, each afternoon or evening when I arrived at a new camp. An example is“Primo camp near Purple Lake. AOK.” In the first week or so, I got scant replies.(The point, after all, was simply to let her know I was okay.) At some point I texted“A few words now and then would be nice”, punctuated with a smile face emoji. This text was clearly a symptom of my solitude. But way before then– the first day out, in fact– I quickly decided that, out of loneliness, I would chat up pretty much anyone I saw on the trail. I should mention that, because my backpacking permit began at Tuolumne Meadows, and I didn’t want to miss the“official” first portion of the JMT that goes from Yosemite Valley to the Meadows, I considered doing a day hike a few days in advance of my permit start date, from the Valley to the Meadows. The distance for such a hike, depending on exactly where you start in the Valley and where you end in the Meadows, is about 25 miles. That’s a lot for a day, even on level ground. And when you add 4600 feet of net elevation gain, you’re talking a serious commitment. I’ve been in over my head before on committing to something I ultimately couldn’t do. A couple of years ago, for example, I joined up for a Cactus-to-Clouds event, a 21-mile day hike from the desert floor in Palm Springs to the summit of San Jacinto Peak, then down to the Palm Springs Aerial Tram Station…...where a cable car will whisk you back to the desert in 10 minutes. With over 10,000 feet of elevation gain and way steeper than normal for the first half, this hike has claimed a number of lives over the years. In my case, I developed debilitating leg cramps just a couple of miles below the peak. I had to wait and rest for a couple of hours while my friends summited and returned to pick me up. I more or less hobbled down to the tram station. There's a rule of thumb formula called the Naismith rule, that a Scottish mountaineer came up with in 1892 for hiking. It has been popularized in the U S by the Sierra club. The rule says, allow one hour for every three miles forward plus an additional hour for every 2000 feet of ascent. For the Valley to Meadows hike, this comes out to roughly 10 and a half hours. I had no car and would be relying on the Yosemite Area Rapid Transit System. During the summer, YARTS has a daily bus from the Valley to Mammoth Lakes, my staging area for the JMT backpack, with a stop in the Meadows at 6:45 PM. If I add two hours for rest stops and half an hour contingency to the nominal 10 and a half hours, it means I would have to leave the Valley at about 5:45 AM, well before sunrise that time of year. I decided to go for it. A couple of hours after sunrise, on the morning of that hike, I was trying to figure out which way to go at a confusing junction, when I ran into a 40 something guy, Mitch, camping nearby. Mitch appeared to have just gotten up, and was getting ready to break camp and get started for the day. He asked me if I had seen a gal, Nora, with whom he had connected the prior day. I told him that it was pretty early when I passed through an area called Little Yosemite Valley, where Nora and others might've been camping and no one was stirring at that time. Mitch asked if I wanted to hike with him to Tuolumne, but I was in a hurry and sensed that it would be a while before he was ready. So I said"thanks, but I think I'll continue on, probably we'll see you on the trail later". I started again the trail ascending here at a fairly decent clip. Half an hour later, a trail runner, headed in the opposite direction, was coming closer. I noticed he was wearing no pack, so I stopped and asked him as he passed by,"Where are you coming from?". He said he was camped down in Little Yosemite Valley. He was currently headed back there after trying to see how far he could get towards Clouds Rest in the early morning. At this point, I immediately realized that I had taken a wrong turn back where I was chatting with Mitch. I sighed, took a deep breath, and turned around. Going quickly downhill now, I was annoyed with myself for the time wasted in missing my turnoff. Soon I was back at the vicinity of the junction, and there was Mitch still fussing with breaking camp. I pretty much ignored him because having already lost nearly an hour, I needed to get back on route quickly. I decided to take a shortcut and go cross country to where, in just a hundred feet or so, I'd reconnect with the JMT. But it didn't happen. I was close to a panic. When you're on a trail within the wilderness, you're really on a ribbon of civilization that penetrates the wilderness. But you're not in the wilderness. And when you're off trail like I was, you are in danger of not finding your way back to civilization. I kept checking with my GPS and map app, which assured me that I was close to the trail. And finally about an hour and a half after I mistakenly left the JMT towards Clouds Rest, I was back on it. Not too much later after I was back on route, I got a text from Jon who said, I noticed you took a detour towards Clouds Rest. I responded, noting his generous interpretation of my embarrassing navigation error. Not long after cresting the high point in the Valley to Meadows hike, Cathedral Pass, I passed a young woman who asked me a question about the somewhat complicated choices of paths we would soon have as we approached and then arrived in the Tuolumne area. I told her what I knew, said"I'm Jim by the way", and asked if she was Nora by any chance. Turns out she was. So I related to her my earlier encounter with Mitch. She listened and nodded, but overall her response was basically a shrug. I continued on and soon came upon a group of four male hikers headed in the opposite direction. I had arranged a few so-called bear bells on my trekking poles and backpack. The idea was to make a noise that a bear would hear in advance of an encounter. I had them because I was going by myself and had experience in the past with coming on a bear abruptly. As I passed the group, we exchanged"good afternoons". About a minute later, separated now by a few hundred feet, I overheard one of them say to the rest,"You know when a bear hears those bells, it thinks‘mmm, time for dinner!", an old joke I had heard before. I responded with an amiable"I HEARD THAT...". They laughed. I would encounter many more hikers in the weeks to come. Eventually I would settle on"Where did you camp last night?" as my standard question, in part because if the group was going in the direction opposite of mine, their answer would give me an idea of upcoming camping possibilities. In the beginning of my backpack, though, I would ask,"Where are you headed today?". Typically the answer was"Well, not sure...". But one young man without breaking his stride as he passed me, said simply"Wherever life takes me".