[pct-l] JMT trip in August

[dude at fastmail.ca (dude)]

Ron - I have done the JMT twice in august and both time sin trail 
runners with no ice axe.  The JMT is a very heavily used trail and by 
august the path will have been beaten rugularly with the 100's of 
people that went before you.  If there still is any snow on the 
passes, its likely that there will be perfect steps already cut into 
the snow that were made even better each time someone packed them 
down by walking over them.  

In 1998, the snow in the Sierras the was recorded at nearly 300% more 
than normal, yet the JMT was well-traveled, clearly marked, and the 
passes were more easily traversed than the Sierras north of 
Yosemite.  I did the trail that year in trail runners and the only 
section that I had any concern at all about was litterally the last 
1/4 mile before the summit of Whitney.

In my two JMT hikes, I did not use a bear cannister.  We did not 
really have any bear trouble.  We did camp our first night near 
Cathedral lakes between Tuolumne and Yosemite valley and saw a bear 
snoop around the tent while we were inside, but he quickly left to go 
after some easier targets.  We used stealth camping techniques every 
other night and never saw another bear.  There are bear boxes near 
the Rea lakes and we did use them one night.  I have to say that it 
was nice to not have to worry about protecting your food and just be 
able to focus on resting and sleeping. :-)

When we resupplied, we did so at these places:
1. Tuolumne Meadows
2.  Red's Meadow
3.  VVR
4.  Independence over Kearsarge Pass

(one other one that we didn't use is the South Lake trailhead over 
Bishop Pass.  This ends on a road like 40 miles from the town of 
Bishop and was a bitch to hich-hike on the one time I did it.  
Independence was a much easier and shorter hitchhike.)

Good luck.

peace!
dude



> My name's Ron, no trail name yet and since this is my first post,
> I'll mention some things about myself. A few years ago, I was
> introduced to ultralight packing and have been gradually
> lightening my load. This has worked very nicely even for
> snowcamping trips in the Sierra's. I'm interested in thru-hiking 
> the PCT in sections and to that end I've been following this
> newsletter and some other thru-hiker sites.
> 
> A friend and I are planning to hike the JMT starting on August
> 14th. We want to break our hike into three legs of about a week
> each. This is our first attempt at a longer hike and we want to be
> conservative. We'll hike north to south and plan to resupply at
> Muir Ranch and again in Independence by hiking out over Kearsarge
> Pass.  Alternate resupplies might be done at VVR and second by
> hiking out to Cedar Grove via Bubbs Creek trail. Any thoughts on
> these options or others?
> 
> I've been using trail running shoes for most of my summer hikes
> lately, but haven't been over high passes like those we'll
> encounter on the JMT. Will trail runners be adequate for late
> August? Should we take any special precautions, such as timing the
> passes for afternoons when the snow is softer or carrying ice
> axes? I've heard there is a very icy section on the switchbacks
> leading down to Whitney Portal, will the lighter shoes be a
> problem there?
> 
> We plan to carry bear canisters, but the idea doesn't trill us.
> It's an extra 3 lbs. that has no dual use except as a camp stool.
> More importantly, can we fit a weeks worth of food into a standard
> Garcia canister? We'll be bringing dehydrated beans, lentil, some
> pasta, cheese, dry salami, tortillas etc. I don't have a canister
> at home to test the capacity and was planning on renting one in
> Yosemite. If we can't get it all into our canisters, do we need to
> camp where there are bear boxes for a few nights until the excess
> is eaten? Generally, we'd like to camp away from the usual sites,
> a'la Jardine, but we realize that some nights it might be better
> to camp near a bear box. Any comments about all this? Thanks in
> advance!
> 
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