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You are here: Home / John Muir Trail 2014 / Jul 20 – On the JMT!

Jul 20 – On the JMT!

July 20, 2014 by Beardoh

Got into Yosemite Valley around 3pm yesterday.  It was plenty busy and traffic in the valley was pretty much at a standstill.  We got our permits and got setup at the backpackers site.  Then we went with Mace to pizza place at Curry Village for dinner.  Beardoh talked with some other campers who had “bunked” two hammocks in one hanging spot.  He asked them how the top person got into their hammock.  They offered him a piece of pizza and before he knew it, they had given him a box with half a pizza in it.

We woke up early at the backpackers campground this morning.  We always seem to wake up with the sun…it wasn’t the other backpackers that woke us up (although there are probably about 50 other campers here).  We stayed in our hammocks, looking out from under the tarps to see when the rest of the gang got up.  After a leisurely morning of eating, packing and talking, we headed out of camp around 8:00.  We stopped by the car and then headed in the direction of signs for Happy Isle, since this was the designated trailhead for our permit.  Needless to say, we went the wrong way and had to ask a ranger for help.  We finally got to the right trail about 8:40.

The trail is “paved” for the first few miles and can be very steep at the beginning.  The trail was quite full of other hikers, most of them out for a day hike.  We continued up and crossed over a very picturesque waterfall.  The morning had started out clear, but the skies got gradually darker as the morning progressed.  We started feeling sprinkles after the waterfall and once the rain was starting to pick up, we decided to hang up one of our hammock tarps are wait out the rain.  At first our hanging job was pitiful, but we all tried to keep the tarp up.  The rain was coming down really hard and there was even a moment of hail.  We could see the trail start to flood and even where we were sitting, the ground was starting to flood.  Once the rain let up a bit, we fixed the tarp so it was hanging better and we could stand under the tarp.  We all ate lunch and just waited for the rain to stop.  We probably stayed there for about an hour and we were glad that we had done that.  Our clothes were not too wet and most importantly, our shoes were not too wet.

Once we headed back out on the trail, we probably had less than two miles to go until we reached camp.  We only had around 6 miles to do as we were setting up for Mike, Mace and Tom to hike Half Dome tomorrow and we will hike Clouds Rest.  We got into camp before 3:00, which meant a long afternoon of hanging around.  Two girls, Kelsey and Claire, that we had met earlier on the trail are camping with us tonight.  Some grey clouds have rolled back in and there has been some thunder this evening.  Everyone is in bed before 7:00.

Daily Miles: 6.6
Total Miles: 6.6

IMG_20140720_103243_339 IMG_20140720_103938_764IMG_1365 IMG_1378

Filed Under: John Muir Trail 2014

« Jul 17 – Final Day on The Trail
Jul 21 – Clouds Rest »

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