Prologue

How I Hiked It in Pieces

Highlights

Eight years, mostly southbound

My journey on the John Muir Trail started many years ago. After eight years, I finally completed the whole trail. I never set out to thru-hike it. Instead I walked it in pieces, one section at a time, chasing the best light and the best weather windows, and the trail rewarded that patience.

The book that follows retells the trail southbound, from Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley to the summit of Mount Whitney. But that is not the order I walked it. Some sections I hiked heading north, some heading south, across different years and different trips:

2018 — Wallace Creek to Mt. Whitney, as part of the High Sierra Trail
2019 — Agnew Meadows to Thousand Island Lake, in the Ansel Adams Wilderness
2020 — Echo Valley to Cathedral Lakes, on the High Sierra Camp loop
2021 — Rush Creek to South Lake
2022 — Rush Creek to Happy Isles
2023 — the year Hurricane Hilary washed out my plans
2024 — Onion Valley to Rae Lakes, and back
2025 — Cottonwood Pass to Onion Valley
2026 — South Lake to Onion Valley, the last piece

Piecing a trail together this way is its own kind of privilege. You get to return to the passes you loved, wait out the storms, and photograph the Sierra in every season. What follows is that mosaic, straightened into a single southbound line.

Sunrise falls over Mt. Whitney
Mt. Whitney is the highest peak in the contiguous United States, at 14,505' elevation. It is also the terminus for both the John Muir Trail, which runs North South from Yosemite National Park, for 230 miles and the High Sierra Trail, that runs East West, for 80 miles. This photograph was taken from Trail Camp, at an elevation of 12,039 feet, on the seventh night of hiking the High Sierra Trail. We had summitted Mt. Whitney that day, by walking along the trail along the ridge from left to right on that photograph. It is 1.8 miles and you are hiking from 13,645 feet at Trail Crest (left edge of this photo) to Mt. Whitney at 14,505 feet to the right (second from the right most peak). As anyone who has done this walk would attest, it is the longest 1.8 miles for a typical hiker. The infamous 99 switchbacks are to the left of the screen here. The 99 switchbacks take you from Trail Camp to Trail Crest. We had started at Crescent Meadow at Sequoia National Park and hiking East. This photograph was taken during sunrise.
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