JMT -Expectations vs. Reality (and pictures)

Friends,

I apologize, and I’ll apologize again and again for the long delay! I promise, I’ve started this post the day following my return, but I have been struggling to get back in to the rhythm of a faster paced life. In case you haven’t been following my blog, I will summarize what is going on for you: I’ve spent about a year planning, and quite a bit of money to travel to California and sleep inside a 22sqft space and eat instant food for 20+ days. Those 20 days were spent in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to follow the John Muir Trail, which easily became my favorite journey I’ve ever embarked on.

Obviously, I had several expectations and if you’ve been following me, I’m sure you’ve had your own set of expectations for me (like “Faye will post a blog about her trip immediately after the trip… or at least within the week of her return”). Instead of regurgitating the details of my trip as documented in my journal (which actually is extremely boring), I thought it might be fun to compare my expectations to what actually took place during the trip. I know that my writing is not exactly the most entertaining, so if you’d rather just see pictures, fear not, I’ve included several below! Enjoy!

Expectation: The trail will be difficult, but doable
Reality: The trail was the most difficult physical endeavor I’ve ever experienced, but somehow it was doable.

I’ve shared the elevation profile with you all before, and I’ve stared and studied it ferociously for months. Even still, my idea of what was to come was a dainty butterfly crushed by the reality of the arduous undertaking that is the John Muir Trail. My original itinerary exhibits how I also managed to foolishly over-estimate my physical capability. However, it did get easier – not easy, just easier.

You can jump to the next expectation to see the original and actual itinerary to see how my miles start low and then eventually reach a comfortable 13-15 mile average. My legs got stronger, lungs and brain adjusted to the scarcity of oxygen, skin a little more resilient to the sun, and most importantly, my mental strength – the will power to drive me to the finish – was heightened.

I think just about anyone could do a trail like this, you just have to have patience and trust that everyday you will get stronger.

Expectation: Finish the trail on August 10, and be home by 6am August 12
Reality: Finished the 8th, and home on the 9th

We originally wanted to take a couple of zero days, but I think the urgency to make it to our first resupply fueled us in such a way that taking zero days made us feel lazy. Although we did have a few low mile (9-10) days. If I were to do this again, I would have taken the zero days at Rae lakes, Evolution Lake and Thousand Island Lake.

Expectation: I will be immune to elevation sickness
Reality: Elevation sickness is awful

The first two days I woke up with a slight headache. I just assumed it was a result of fatigue and the sun being so potent at 10,000+ feet. However, while making my way up to Trail Crest (13,600′) aka. the 99 switchbacks, my legs started to feel tingly and as if they would suddenly stop working. I’m not exactly sure why I had felt that way, but my hypothesis is that my brain was being greedy and didn’t want to send any oxygen down to my legs. Whatever the cause was, it didn’t stop me from making it up; I just had to take it very slowly and steadily, listening to my body as I climbed on.

At about 12,000′ breathing started to become difficult, but other than the consistent headache, I was feeling fine. I met Phil at Trail Crest, and we decided to camp there. Bad. Idea. There’s a very popular aphorism, that I idiotically ignored: “Hike high; Sleep low.” As the evening progressed, my headache became increasingly unbearable. By sunrise, I woke up with a headache I would never wish on my worst enemy. It felt as if my brain would swell and was just moments away from finding brain matter spilling out of ears and nose. Regrettably, I had to come to terms with not being able to climb Whitney, and descend… FAST. The next two days I suffered with severe loss of appetite, where every single bite of food resulted in a gagging episode. Now, that isn’t as bad if all I have to do is sit at a computer, but with miles to cover, letting myself starve was not something my body could afford.

So, in summary – Elevation sickness SUCKS, but there are ways to prevent, or at least mitigate the severity of it. So do your research before you go, and try to test your body’s ability to cope with it.

5AM: Phil asked me to smile for the picture, but I just couldn’t get myself to

Expectation: DELICIOUS FATTY, CARBY FOODS EVERYDAY! WHAT A DREAM!!!
Reality: No.

Food planning was a nightmare. I mean, I can barely plan my meals out for 3 days of my work week. So, I was essentially going from level 0.5 meal planner to level 75 meal planner. I needed to plan for 3500 calories, 430g of carbs, 130g of fat and 130g of protein per day, each ounce of food containing at least 100 calories… for 20 days! What I ended up taking/packing was oatmeal, eggs and bars for breakfast; candies, protein bars, tuna, cheese, salami and crackers for lunch; several different types of freeze dried dinners. Honestly, I didn’t pack enough for 3500 kcal for each day – I just couldn’t carry it all.

My favorite part about meal planning was imagining how glorious it will feel to be able to eat all these extremely fatty, carby foods without any guilt whatsoever. However, about 5 days into the trip, I was craving vegetables. YES – I, Faye wanted to voluntarily eat vegetables. I think I just wanted to eat something fresh, cold and juicy. We actually encountered a woman with her son (several times throughout the course of the trip), and she shared a piece of her cucumber that she received in a recent resupply. It was the most delicious and sweet cucumber I’ve ever tasted, and for two reasons (1) my craving for vegetables, and (2) PHIL AND I WERE NEAR STARVING!!! I had miscalculated a day, and due to my altitude sickness we were moving much slower than planned. Our resupply was still at the very least 4 days away, and we had enough food for one and a half 3500-calorie-filled day for each of us. When it came the morning to trek the last 13 miles to our first resupply, we were running on 2 ounces of peanut m&ms and a bar for each of us.

I kind of got side tracked here, but I will say one last thing : Our near starving experience had scarred Phil so much that he had packed enough food to bring his pack to 56 lbs (and that’s after sending a few extraneous items home).

Expectation: I will have countless hours to self-reflect
Reality: Zero self-reflection time

With so much time between sundown and bedtime, and the 8+ hours of walking would give me the opportunity to do a lot of thinking – hash out the things that have been stewing in my mind. In fact, all my friends had expected me to come back different, maybe more philosophical and hippie-eque. However, during the trip, I found myself thinking solely about the present – “Today I have to cover 14.6 miles”, “3 miles left to go, so that’s about an hour left till camp”, “I think I’ll eat the Mountain House Lasagna today”, “Why is this mountain so freaking hard to climb???”, “My back… It… Needs…. Rest”, “This lake (this mountain, this meadow, etc) is so gorgeous”. With so many thoughts about the present, or the very imminent future, I barely had time to think about the future, past, or any present that wasn’t there in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I think another reason as to why I got such minimal reflection time is because my brain was preoccupied with processing all the sights, sounds and smells – essentially, being over stimulated.

Additionally, backpacking is just a very busy activity. After a long 8+ hour day of work, we have to essentially build our home, cook, collect and filter water for drinking, cooking, dishes and washing up. By the time we’ve cleaned up the campsite, there is little energy left to do anything more than sleep. There were some nights where I tried to retell the days events to my journal and collect my thoughts, but most nights I fell asleep after the writing out the first few sentences. As I’ve said before, should I do this again, I would definitely take advantage of some zero days to be able to catch up on journaling and let my brain wander a little bit.

No, not self reflecting. Just enjoying some gummy bears lying down because I was too tired to sit.

Expectation: The trail will be very beautiful
Reality: The beauty of the Sierras was mind-blowing, silencing, unbelievable

I expected a lot of mountains (duh), but I definitely could never have imagined them to be so beautifully dressed with rivers, lakes, meadows, fields, snow, waterfalls, desert, valleys, cliffs, the milky way, shooting stars, plains, wildlife, flowers, etc. Most of my time hiking was spent gawking at God’s creations, sometimes leaving me completely oblivious to anything else (my thirst, hunger, the miles I have left, the pain in my feet, hip and back, etc.). The John Muir Trail is truly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen (more pictures at the end of this post).

Expectation: With my A6000, GoPro and iPhone, I will be able take enough pictures to make a 6 hour long slideshow
Reality: There is just not enough time to stop and gape at every beautiful view, because nearly everything in the Sierras was so insanely beautiful

As I sift through my pictures to decide which ones to post, I realize there were so many images in my mind that I wish I had captured. Honestly, I didn’t plan my photo gear as thoroughly as I should have. My A6000 was stored in a waterproof stuffsack at the top of my pack, which was still difficult to access under my rolled up tent. My 16GB iPhone quickly ran out of memory and battery. I didn’t buy the proper accessories for my GoPro, and my solar charger stopped working halfway through the trip. Aside from my lack of preparation, the first half of our trip was spent rushing (because we were running out of food) and some shots just didn’t seem worth it because I knew that none of my cameras were going to be able to capture the views the way I had seen it – It just felt wrong trying to represent such beauty with an image that could never do it any justice.

Expectation: Bears and deer everywhere!
Reality: Fearless deer and one mama bear with cubs!

Another expectation exceeded: there were plenty of wildlife surrounding us at all times of the trip. We saw a lot of deer (mostly in yosemite; We even caught one peeing in a river), chipmunks of all colors, several different species of squirrels, plenty of pesky marmots, swarms of mosquitos and biting flies, two seagulls (what?), funny looking birds called grouses, jackrabbits almost the size of my dog, benevolent snakes, and 3 bears. In certain parts of the trail, the animals are not phased by the sight of humans (especially closer to the northern terminus). I’ve had marmots come and persist around my things even as I attempt to shoo them away by kicking my feet, and deer allow us to get as close as 3 feet away. Even the mama bear and cubs didn’t flee from us, as I have seen on the east coast, they simply just watched us slowly back up and circumvent the part of the trail they were chillin’ at.

Expectation: I will meet many people with interesting backgrounds
Reality: Exactly what I had expected

One of my favorite parts of the trail was engaging in conversations, hiking alongside, and sharing stories, laughs and food with the people we’ve met on the trail. Hikers are friendly people – it’s pretty much 99% fact (1% is the one grumpy man we ran into a few times). This fact is something I’ve known from my previous backpacking trips. However, the thing with the JMT is that there are people who are starting from the same place around the same time, and most of them are planning to finish around your final destination around the same time. So, inevitably we ran into the same people near daily, and those people became our little hiker family.

Phil and I really enjoyed the company of our two friends that we ended up camping with the last few days of the trail. Without them, we would have never explored Clouds Rest, which I highly recommend to all who plan to thru-hike the JMT or even just visit Yosemite!

Found some Hokies!

These PCT hikers were on their 900+ mile

LAST ASCENT!

There’s so much more I could say about this adventure, many more stories I have to tell (like my wag bag story – ask me if you’re curious!). However, I am realizing that I am terrible at transforming my thoughts into a coherent and cohesive blog post, especially one that requires so much organization. So, I hope this blog helped you all get at the very least a peek into my 220+ mile adventure. In case all that mumbo jumbo has failed to do so, here are a few pics of my journey (in chronological order).