A Yorkshireman Abroad: The Wilderness Of The John Muir Trail
The John Muir Trail
If there is a such as thing as ‘fate’ then I must have experienced it when I attended a society wedding in Scotland and, soon after, found myself committed to completing one of America’s best loved trekking challenges.
The happy nuptials took me to East Lothian where the reception was held at a wonderful family home, usually reserved for corporate clients eager to be close to some of Scotland’s finest golf courses.
However, before the late ceremony started, there was an opportunity visit the local seaside town of Dunbar where, inadvertently, I happened upon the birthplace of John Muir, probably one of Scotland’s finest examples of a reverse export.
John Muir
Long before he was ‘re-adopted’ by Scotland, John Muir, who was born in 1838 and emigrated to the US at the age of 11 (his father was said to have wanted a sterner brand of Christianity than the Church of Scotland could offer), went on to become one of America’s most famous conservation pioneers.
To this day he is referred to as the “Father of the National Parks” and, as well as rubbing shoulders with presidents and other American influentials of his time, his activism helped preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas.
He started the famous Sierra Club, now one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States, and one of the best-known hiking trails in America, the 211-mile (340 km) John Muir Trail (JMT) was named in his honour.
Ironically it was only when thousands of American tourists began arriving in Scotland many decades later and began asking after Mr Muir, that Scots realised that Dunbar was once the birthplace of one of their more famous sons! A new tourism industry was born!
So it was with no little surprise that I returned to Leeds a couple of days after my East Lothian wedding, to be greeted by a couple of friends eager to tell me about their latest walking ‘discovery’….the John Muir Trail! Within minutes we had resolved to tackle the JMT. It took a year to plan but boy, what an experience it turned out to be!
Trust me, walking 10-20 miles a day, invariably uphill and down dale, whilst carrying a 35-40 pounds backpack, is better than any diet, especially when you’re food intake is restricted to 2000 calories a day, whilst your body is using nearer 4,000!
However, before you are accorded the luxury of digging your own toilet, carrying your own food and waste (sometimes that includes excrement in mandatory Government Issue ‘wag bags’!), you must first plan to the last detail because, for 21 days, you will have only the company of bears, mountains and trees!
The Backpack Challenge
In preparing for such a walk it is, perhaps, worth remembering Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, especially when packing! As a minimum make sure you have the basics for survival and, if you can keep the weight down to 35lbs (SAS soldiers are usually good for somewhere around 60lbs), that’ll be quite enough!
Then you have to parcel up an additional seven days food supplies for onward forwarding to Muir Trail Ranch, the half-way point on the trail and the last re-supply station before the end of the walk at the top of Mount Whitney, America’s highest peak.
Pre planning, as the saying goes, prevents poor performance and never a truer word spoken; the devil is in the detail – the Swiss Army knife, spare shoe laces, beany hat (you lose so much heat through your head, especially at night), tent light, fast drying towels, ziploc bags in which to carry all your rubbish, including used toilet paper….the list goes on!
So, to concertina the story, we packed, we flew, we landed at San Francisco, posted our supplies to Muir Trail Ranch courtesy of the ‘airport’ Post Office, one of the few open on a Saturday in SF, headed for our hotel, enjoyed three days in the Golden Gate city and awoke early one morning ready for the second leg of our adventure!
Hitching A Ride!
Extranomical is one of the few San Francisco tour companies that runs day trips to Yosemite National Park, so we were able to hitch a ride to the famous Ahwahnee Hotel, the last two night luxury we would experience for a few weeks, following a speedy visit to the wonderful sequoia trees at Tuolumne Grove.
Non stop to Yosemite with Extranomical Tours!
Realistically the JMT is a 21 day walk, 18 if you want to prove a point and 15 if you have nothing to prove other than that you are an Olympic athlete! It will take you uphill and down dale thousands of feet, you will pick up the odd foot blister, be so tired at night that you probably won't want to eat or cook - but you know you must -, but it will leave you with such a feeling of achievement that you'll realise, in the passing of time, that it was all worth it, even carrying your own poo!
Map reading skills are a bonus but, as a minimum, a copy of one of the various JMT maps is recommended, nay a necessity, so that you can, at least, spot the lakes, observe the ascents and descents of the forthcoming terrain, and figure out where you are, where to get water and where to camp.
Writing about the JMT is in danger of becoming something akin to showing your holiday snaps to the neighbour, great for you but soon pretty boring for them! So, you can probably understand that I could talk for hours about it, but I won't!
Other than to say the walk was a challenge, not just physically but mentally. Living in a tent for three weeks - and yes it did sometimes rain in the afternoons - is taxing. Digging your own toilet isn't a bunch of laughs on the day but you soon get used to it.
Stunning Views
Will you have enough gas in your stove for the next four days, and will anyone be offended if I keep breaking wind because we didn't let the dried food stand long enough before eating it. Result? It reconstituted itself in my stomach with the resulting impression of a whoopee cushion, only my cushion produced laughs for the next eight hours!
Trail life is fun, hard, tiring, rewarding, relaxing, stunning. There aren't enough adjectives to describe the JMT.
There are coyotes howling at night, moles working tirelessly at the edge of your tent, marmots standing in line to chew through your unattended haversack at the first opportunity, the elegance of deers watching you watching them, and the continual promise of seeing a grizzly.
Incidentally just before we began the trail a park ranger asked what we would do if we spotted a grizzly. "This is where I take your advice," was my reply.
"Well," he said, "make lots of noise, try and make yourself as 'big' as you can by waving your walking poles above your head and, if it charges you, don't run just stand your ground. It's normally just a mock charge and they will swerve away before making impact." Yeah, right! I just figured that it was a case of running faster than the person behind me!
Technically the trail finishes at the top of Mount Whitney, although there is an additional 18 mile, 6000 ft descent to the trail head and back to civilisation, ahead of a 12 mile car ride to the nearby town of Lone Pine (thumbing a lift is the only 'public' transport!). That's a cool 229 miles.
Mount Whitney
And my overriding memory? Obviously the stunning views and isolation were amazing but I'll never forget the moment I stood on top of Mount Whitney and a woman next to me opened her haversack and lifted out an urn.
I broke the silence by asking her what her story was. "These are my husband's ashes," she said. "I'm 35, he was 40 and died earlier this year from cancer. I take him everywhere with me." She balanced the urn on the cliff edge, photographed it and carefully placed it back in her haversack.
At that very moment I realised why I was on the John Muir Trail. Life is for living now, today. There isn't a 'perfect' day, the chances of you winning the lottery are slim and if you're waiting to live your life when you retire, then you may be sadly disappointed if you have left it too late or poor health gets in the way.
I never knew the man in the urn but at 40 he was dead. I'm so glad I have experienced the triumph and spiritual joy of the John Muir Trail. Thank God I got that wedding invite to East Lothian!
