Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 10:17:41 -0600 From: bpw@plasmasys.lanl.gov (Blake P. Wood) To: ius-l@AMERICAN.EDU, ultra@caligari.dartmouth.edu Subject: Five day run of the John Muir Trail (XP) SHORT VERSION: Last week (8/9-8/13) I ran the John Muir Trail, which goes from Mt. Whitney to Yosemite Valley in California's Sierra Nevada, covering the 223 miles in five days. This required three nights camping out in the backcountry, and one night (the last) sleeping in my Dad's car in a campground. I carried all my stuff on my back, but in order to have the load light enough that I could run, I didn't take a sleeping bag, tent, or stove. My gear and warm clothes weighed in at 12 lbs. At the start I carried about 5 lbs food for the first three days. Dad carried food in for me on the third day, and met me where I crossed roads twice thereafter and at the end. His support was a BIG psychological boost! It turned out to be much harder than I had anticipated, and I spent much longer on the trail each day than I had planned. I typically slept in my clothes until I got cold, started at midnight, and went until 5 or 6 pm. I walked the uphills and ran most of the levels and downhills - just like any mountainous hundred. There was snow over the passes (including one 5 mile stretch on crampons) and enough high creeks and water on the trail that my feet were nearly always wet: blister-city! The weather was great (although hot), and the views and wildflowers sublime. The remainder of this note is intended to supply some more details in case anyone else is interested in trying this way of covering lots of territory. I found myself surprised at a number of things that happened. LONG VERSION: WHY DID I DO THIS? When I was 13 (in 1972), I planned to do the whole JMT in a month with some older high school buddies of mine. The trip fell through at the last minute. I've wanted to do it ever since, but with college, a job, grad school, a family, etc., I could never spare the 2-3 weeks of precious vacation. After I started running ultras a few years back, I had a revelation: I could RUN it in a week! As this summer was the big 4-0 for me, I decided now was the time. WHY DO IT SO EXTREME? I'd heard of other ultrarunners fastpacking it in 8-9 days, and my Dad simply backpacked it in 9 days a few years back. This didn't seem like enough of a challenge. It wasn't my intention to attempt some sort of record for the JMT. I don't know what the record is, but assume someone has probably done it at least a day faster than I did (for the record, my elapsed time from the Whitney summit to Happy Isles was 4 days, 15 hours, 37 minutes). I simply thought that 5 or 6 days seemed like a pace that would be reasonable, but still enough of a push to make it interesting. My ultrarunning buddy Joanne Urioste had invited me to do it in 6 days with her two years ago, but it conflicted with Hardrock. Joanne made it to Red's Mdw (160 miles) on schedule, but had to drop with terrible shin splints that she blamed on having to walk due to her too-heavy-to-run-with pack. Some compromise would be necessary if I was to run it, and I decided to leave behind the sleeping bag, tent, and stove. This is not as crazy as it sounds - the bivouac is a time-honored technique in mountaineering that I'd exploited a number of times. However, I'd never tried to do it more than one night at a time, and here I'd have to do it for the first three nights. Still, it seemed like a safe bet. WHAT WAS THE SCHEDULE? To a first approximation, the JMT is two Hardrock Hundreds, back to back, without aid stations. Sure, it's a bit longer (223 vs. 202 miles), but has a somewhat less climb (83k' total climb/descent vs. 132k' for two Hardrocks). My Dad supported me throughout the whole thing, transporting me to the start, beginning the hike up Whitney with me, and driving back and forth across the Sierra over the next five days to carry food in to me on the third day (a 25 mile round trip hike), and to meet me with the car at Red's Mdw (160 miles) and Tuolumne Mdws (198 miles) on the fourth and fifth days, respectively. He also met me at the end in Yosemite Valley, and drove me back to SoCal. Yeoman duty, indeed, but he was as excited about this trip as I was! I started each day at midnight and hiked/ran until 5 or 6 pm, which gave me enough time to set up camp, cook a bit of hot food over a small wood fire, and get four hours of fitful, uncomfortable sleep before starting over again. Three of the mornings, I took a short (30-60 minute) nap just before dawn. I planned the trip so all my nights would be at relatively low elevations (8000'-9000') for warmth. My daily mileages were 42, 42, 42, 39, and 58, and I camped at Vidette Mdw, Grouse Mdw, Hilgard Creek, and Red's Mdw. I made it down to Yosemite Valley at 10 pm on the fifth day. I got lucky with the weather - it only rained hard once, out of Tuolumne Mdws, when I was on my way out and didn't care. The weather was unusually warm - I didn't need more than a long sleeve shirt while I was moving, even over the high passes before dawn. This helped me be comfortable at night (when I still got cold), but cut both ways - it was brutally hot during some of the long climbs and descents. I scheduled this trip to be the week after the full moon, so there was plenty of light at night to see some of the scenery. WHAT DID I CARRY? I carried my regular running belt and a day pack. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't carry a sleeping bag, tent, or stove. For warmth, I carried a light foam pad, polypro sweater, rain jacket, long sleeve shirt, tights, wind pants, balaclava, and gloves. I carried a small aluminum tea kettle to cook my one luxury - mashed potatoes at night. I carried a 20 oz running bottle, but left it empty, instead relying on a filter bottle to carry about 8 oz water at a time and sipped it all day as I went. This worked really well, and saved me a lot of weight compared to if I had treated water 20-40 oz at a time. I carried all the normal essentials: DEET, sunscreen, TP, matches, ibuprofen, chapstick, maps, sunglasses, toothbrush, athletic tape, etc. I carried some fishing line and hooks, intending to suppliment my food with trout, but never had the time to use them. I carried instep crampons for the first three days, and used them over Muir Pass. I carried a big 2-D cell focussing flashlight with extra batteries for nighttime use. During the first night (going up Whitney), I spend a lot of time hiking by the nearly full moon. For food, I relied on home-dried apricots, homemade beef jerky, granola, crackers, and a maltodextrine/dextrose mixture. I carried about 4500 calories/day, but ended up with lots of food left over - I don't think I ate more than 3500 calories/day, and rarely seemed to be hungry. On the last day (from Red's Mdw to Yosemite Valley) I only carried the running belt, since I didn't need all the warm clothes, sleeping pad, cooking pot, or as much food. WHAT PROBLEMS/SURPRISES DID I ENCOUNTER? I had expected to spend 12-14 hours/day on the trail, having lots of time left over to relax, fish, clean up, etc. In reality, I ended up spending 17-18 hours/day on the trail, so there was little time to do anything except get to camp, eat dinner, catch 4 hours of fitful sleep, then get up at midnight to do it all over again. I felt rushed the whole time, but it did keep me focussed on the task. I found that I could reliably and consistently walk uphill at 2 mph, and run downhill at 4 mph. That doesn't sound very fast, but think of it as a 25 hour hundred and you'll have a better idea. Those paces included breaks (typically 5-10 minutes every hour), stream crossings, and sections of rough trail that I couldn't run, and I was carrying a pack as well. I could hold the same pace during the 6 hours of nighttime travel. I consciously held back a little, remembering that I had to get up and do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.... Brick Robbins had warned me that there was a lot of snow still in the Sierra, and he was right - there was snow over every pass and water everywhere. The only pass that caused me problems was Muir Pass, where I was on crampons over about 5 miles of deep suncups - VERY slow going! The highest lakes were still frozen over in the southern half. There were many creeks I had to wade, which in a normal year I could have hopped across on rocks. Due to this, my feet were continuously wet, despite carrying spare socks, and this caused my feet to blister terribly. I ended up with nine toes taped, as well as the heels and balls of both feet. One thing that pleasantly surprised me was that my quads didn't get sore at all until the end of the fourth day. I had expected them to get hammered early, but suppose that the slow pace delayed this until the end. I didn't have any trouble with bears, and used a bear box only once, in Vidette Mdws. I only met one ranger, north of Whitney, and she didn't ask to see my wilderness permit. There were mosquitos and black flies, but I've seen them worse. My biggest crisis came at the very end - only two miles from the bottom of Yosemite Valley. At the last minute before leaving Tuolumne Mdws, I decided to carry my Dad's small AA cell flashlight to save a few ounces over my big 2-D cell flashlight - after all, I would only be a couple hours in the dark. This was a mistake. I had sworn off these little flashlights for running years ago - they just don't throw enough light for me to run by. In addition, this was too spur of the moment - I took what Dad had handy, including spare batteries, without really knowing whether they were fresh or worked at all. To make a long story short, I was around the top of the Mist Trail, which descends next to Vernal Falls, when I noticed that my light was getting awfully dim after less than one hour use. I switched to the spare batteries, and my blood went cold when I discovered they were dead! This was no joke - for the first time ever, I was honestly way over my head while running, and could feel disaster looming. Picture a wet, water sprayed, narrow, steep staircase without a handrail, clinging to the face of a sheer cliff, and you have a pretty good picture of the Mist Trail, and I was on it in the dark without a light. It's wonderful what a little adrenaline will do for you - 30 minutes before I had been sleepy-tired, terribly sore, and beyond exhaustion. Suddenly, I was tuned in, aware, and without a pain! I managed to descend the Mist Trail by the dim glow of the nearly dead flashlight, which would vaguely illuminate two steps at a time if I held it close to the ground. When I finally got down to the final mile of paved path, it was like being reborn. THIS I could do safely in the dark! While descending the Mist Trail, I had wondered why it didn't hurt when I stubbed my blistered toes. Now I found out - it hurt like hell, but had been masked by the adrenaline! I learned (or rather relearned) a good lesson from this - NEVER rely on equipment that you don't KNOW works, and don't make substitutions at the last minute. Doing the JMT in five days was a fun and interesting challenge, and I feel great to have accomplished it. I don't think I'll ever try doing it that fast again, however. Too intense and too lonely. Taking an extra couple days would have allowed me to relax a bit. Also, I hadn't anticipated how much I would miss having another person along to discuss the things I was seeing. Rebecca and I plan to return in two years to backpack the whole thing in a couple weeks for our 20th wedding anniversary. Now THAT will be fun! - Blake Blake P. Wood Physics Div., Plasma Physics Group P-24, MS-E526, Los Alamos Nat'l Lab, Los Alamos NM 87545 (505) 665-6524 Fax: (505) 665-3552 bwood@lanl.gov http://harry.lanl.gov/bpw/bpwplan.html