Gear, Permits & Logistics

How to hike it yourself

Permits

Getting a John Muir Trail permit is harder every year. The bottleneck is Donohue Pass, the exit out of Yosemite. The weekly Yosemite lottery for it, 24 weeks out, is the hardest ticket in backpacking; one year I applied for 21 days and got nothing. The lottery holds 60% of the permits, and the other 40% open a week before the start date.

My workaround is the Rush Creek trailhead. On Recreation.gov, under Inyo National Forest wilderness permits, I book an "Overnight Exiting Mt. Whitney" permit from Rush Creek exiting Whitney Portal, for 21 days. Inyo labels every trailhead with a letter-number code (AA05 for Rush Creek, AA10/AA15 for Devils Postpile), so once you know yours, you can jump straight to it. Then, for a start a couple of days after I expect to finish that section, I book a second "Overnight" permit from Rush Creek back to Happy Isles, a 52-mile hike that completes the Yosemite section separately. The same trick works from other trailheads, such as Devils Postpile. Note that two thirds of Donohue exit permits (30 of 45 a day) start from Lyell Canyon in Tuolumne Meadows, so for most hikers the Happy Isles-to-Tuolumne stretch has to be its own trip anyway.

Some of these side trailheads have trailhead camping for the night before your permit starts. Cottonwood Pass is self-registration: no reservations and no ranger on site, so bring cash in exact change for the envelope. Onion Valley's campground can be reserved on Recreation.gov.

Bear canisters

Plan on carrying a bear canister. Canisters are required for overnight trips throughout Yosemite's wilderness, and hanging food is not allowed anywhere in the park. Inyo National Forest requires them along the JMT and in its other listed food-storage areas, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon require them in zones that include the Rae Lakes Loop and Dusy Basin. Most JMT hikers carry one the whole way.

Resupply

Most hikers resupply by mailing food ahead and picking it up on the trail. Reds Meadow, near Devils Postpile, holds packages for hikers, and so does Vermilion Valley Resort on Lake Edison, a side trip off the trail. Muir Trail Ranch takes resupply in buckets, mailed by USPS at least three weeks before you arrive, with your name and pickup date on the bucket. On my 2021 section I resupplied at Reds Meadow and picked up a bucket at MTR.

Gear that worked

• Aarn Featherlite Freedom Bodypack: a game changer. I hiked the whole trail without load on my shoulders and without pain, walking upright with an erect back rather than hunched under a pack. This bag is not everyone's cup of tea, but if you can deal with the different design, it helps to distribute the load.
• Tarptent Double Rainbow Li: a 27 oz two-person tent. It sets up quickly on all kinds of terrain and in the rain, which mattered on the stormy days.
• Pacerpoles: no shoulder fatigue on long ascents and descents. There's a learning curve and Heather sends you homework before you head out; it's worth doing.
• MSR Windburner: the best $150 (about $200 now) I have spent on backpacking gear. The fuel efficiency is unparalleled: one 16-oz canister cooked for the whole group of five for nearly eight days, and I discarded it at MTR still half full.
• Apple Watch Series 10: I switched from a Garmin once I found I could get about thirteen hours of GPS life with airplane and theater modes on. The heart-rate monitor was a good gauge of how I was doing. On the 2021 section my earlier Apple Watch warned me my blood oxygen was low (93%), measured at high altitude, which, it turns out, is just what happens up high.
• Kevin Leahy custom boots: I know many hikers like to hike with trail runners. I went the opposite direction and got a custom boot done by Kevin Leahy. It is heavy and has a steel shank, but I can walk with far less fear of rolling my ankles and my feet feel fresh at the end of each hard day.

Gear that did not work

• Superfeet ME3D custom insoles: I ordered these to fight a blister and wore them daily for a month, but never tested them under a full pack, uphill. My toes were in excruciating pain from day one, and I nearly quit the trail before I traced it to the insoles, hiked a day without them to be sure, and finally cut the arch support out in frustration and finished without it. I regretted buying them.
• Nemo Tensor Deluxe air mattress: it sprang a slow leak that got worse each night, and patching it in Nüümü Hu Hupi didn't stop it. A spare foam pad from someone in the group got me to the finish.
• On the 2026 section: my backpack kept slipping from my hips, and I routinely ran into problems with FarOut.

Section hiking

A few things I learned section-hiking:

1. Enter from the side. One year I applied for 21 days of Donohue exits and drew nothing. Side trailheads are far easier to get: Rush Creek, South Lake (Bishop Pass), North Lake (Piute Pass) and Onion Valley (Kearsarge Pass) on the Inyo side, or Florence Lake (for MTR) and Lake Edison (for VVR) with a Sierra National Forest permit.
2. Train for the descents. The descents were harder on me than the climbs. Coming down Donohue Pass and from Sunrise Lakes in 2022 I rolled my ankles three or four times and my shins and calves were tight by evening, and the drop from Muir Pass down Le Conte Canyon was hard going.
3. Carry weight in front. On the Aarn I keep the dense gear (food, water, the camera) in the front balance pockets, so the load is split between the front and the back and my shoulders carry almost none of it.

Where I camped, section by section

I never thru-hiked the John Muir Trail. I walked it in sections over eight years, and these are the camps that strung those sections together.

2018 · Ansel Adams Wilderness

• Lake Ediza
• Thousand Island Lake

2019 · High Sierra Trail

On the High Sierra Trail:

• Nine Mile Creek
• Upper Hamilton Lake
• Big Arroyo
• Kern Hot Spring
• Wallace Creek
• Guitar Lake
• Trail Camp

2020 · High Sierra Camp loop

• Vogelsang
• Merced Lake
• Upper Cathedral Fork
• Upper Cathedral Lake

2021 · Rush Creek to South Lake

• Thousand Island Lake
• Rosalie Lake
• Reds Meadow
• Duck Lake
• Nüümü Hu Hupi
• Mono Creek
• Rose Lake
• Muir Trail Ranch
• McClure Meadow
• Sapphire Lake
• Le Conte Canyon
• Dusy Basin

2021 · Ansel Adams Wilderness

A one-night side trip from Agnew Meadows to Ediza and Iceberg Lakes in September 2021.

• Lake Ediza

2022 · Rush Creek to Happy Isles

• Thousand Island Lake
• Upper Lyell Canyon
• Upper Cathedral Lake
• Little Yosemite Valley

2024 · Onion Valley to Rae Lakes

• Kearsarge Lakes
• Charlotte Lake
• Middle Rae Lake

2025 · Cottonwood Pass to Onion Valley

• Soldier Lake
• Crabtree Meadows
• Tyndall Creek
• Upper Vidette Meadow
• Kearsarge Lakes

2026 · South Lake to Onion Valley

• Dusy Basin
• Stillwater Meadow
• Upper Palisade Lake
• South Fork Kings junction
• Woods Creek (3 miles north of the bridge)
• Middle Rae Lake
• Kearsarge Lakes