You can approach your hike of the John Muir Trail in two ways: either as a through-hike or in sections. A through-hike will allow you to hike the entire trail at one time, whereas hiking in sections will allow you to hike the trail over a period of time (either months or years). The advantages of a through-hike are that you have done the entire trip at once. The advantages of doing the trail in sections is to allow you the opportunity to spend more time hiking and enjoying the trail if you have time constraints in your normal or work life. Many people report that the time they spent doing their through hike did not allow them the opportunity to really take the time to enjoy the various spots along the trail and most report they will go back and spend more time to do the trip again or spend more time in certain sections. Then there are those whose thrill is to speed hike the trail in as fast as time as possible. For the JMT, the current time seems to be just under 4 days of hiking. At 211 miles, that is about 53 miles a day and an average of 2-1/2 passes a day! There are also people who yo-yo the trail. These people will hike one way and then turn around and hike back.

carry all of your food for the entire trip. With the current requirements for some type of bear canister, you are also limited to the amount of food that you can easily fit into the canister. Therefore, a re-supply or two (or more) is in order. A re-supply allows you to ship your food cache to a place along the trail (either a resort, post office or service, or really nice friend!) who will hold the food for your arrival.

The two most popular re-supply options along the trail seem to be the Muir Trail Ranch and Vermilion Valley Resort. You can also send your cache to post offices along the way, but they are not just off the trail as with these resorts. The post office or town trip is an option for the Red's Meadow area (you can take a shuttle into Mammoth), the post office at Tuolumne Meadows (or even the store where they do carry beer!) is just off the trail. Other options are pack services that bring in your cache and will cook you a meal, take your trash back, and even warm up some water for a camp shower! These services will cost you some money though. Another option is to have a friend meet you along the way with a cache! But treat that friend with special care!

My brother and I will take about 16 days to hike the trail this summer. This is by far too fast of a hike to really enjoy the trail and leaves no time for a “zero” or layover day. But alas, we both still work and have wives that would like us to spend some time with them and 16 days was about the most we could work out for the trip. We are both into fly fishing so our trip will be based on where we can stop for lunch, dinner and the night that has great fishing! As we will only be on the trail for 16 days, we are choosing to re-supply once at Muir Trail Ranch at about day 9 or 10. Muir Trail requires you to pack your cache in a plastic bucket (5 gallon painter's bucket) that can be used to take trash out as well. Be creative on your re-supply since you may be able to pack some treats into the bucket that you consume at the ranch before you pack up your trash. We will try and get there for lunch and pack some canned fruit and possibly a beer or two? :)

I plan on keeping a journal of the trip and will provide the information on the Journals page once complete. There are many services out their to view other journals and with the ease of web-page design, many others have kept their journals on-line as well. The journals are great information for getting some insight into what to expect for your trip and what you may encounter along the way. Some of the more popular sites are:

Another great way to obtain information on the trip and just backpacking in general are site forums that allow people with similar interests to share information. Although these sites are moderated, they are not for the weak or timid, so take all comments with a grain of salt! Here are some of the ones I frequented to get information on gear, ultra light hiking and trip reports:

Thinking of Going Light?

For a detailed account of our trip please refer to the Journals section of this site!