I love San Diego. I’m hanging outside in the sunshine trying to get a little tan on my pasty white legs and enjoying a small breeze. On days like this I feel very fortunate to live where I do considering that back in Ohio the winters can be so brutal. AND to top it all off, today due to daylight savings, the sun doesn’t set until about 7 pm – can life get any better? All I need now is a beer…
Anyway, I wanted to write a little bit about permits and the JMT, as this is one of the very first things you need to think about when planning to do this long hike. There is only one permit that you need to obtain in order to hike the entire trail (even though you are going through multiple parks). 60% of the permits are reserve-able starting 24 weeks (148 days) before the planned first day of your trip (the other 40% are available as walk-up permits). I’m sure that some people would be fine showing up early the day before their hike to obtain a walk-up permit, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance, so I set about getting a reservation for a wilderness permit. The reservation for a wilderness permit can be faxed with your top three choices for start dates and starting and ending points. I did this twice stating 3 different starting trailheads, each time with the start date of either August 23, 2011 or August 24, 2011, and was rejected twice! What?!
*Don’t panic…*
Aaron also faxed in a reservation for a wilderness permit, and what do you know, he was awarded our top choice in terms of starting trailheads. So, officially we will be starting at the Happy Isles trailhead (the traditional starting point) on August 24 and exiting at Whitney Portal on September 11. We are planning to take 19 days to hike the entire JMT (about 17, 13 mile days with 2 zero days - kind of slow, we know, but we want to enjoy ourselves).
The other permit to keep in mind is the permit to hike up Half Dome in Yosemite.
People climbing the cables to the top of Half Dome.
Also, we will need to look into where we can stay in both Lone Pine and Yosemite before and after the trip. Our current plan is to drive to Lone Pine and stay overnight at the Lone Pine Comfort Inn on August 22nd. This place is pretty nice, and we have stayed here before when we did some backpacking in the high Sierras in Inyo National Forest. I even called them to see if we could leave a car there while we hike the JMT, and they said yes as long as we stay at least one night. Hello hot showers! Not a problem. The next day we will take public transportation to Yosemite (which I still have to figure out – bus routes, times, tickets, etc.), and then collect our now reserved permits in Yosemite’s wilderness office (which will be available for pickup until 10am the first day of the hike). At Yosemite we will camp overnight in “tent city.” This is a campground available for backpackers the day before and after your hike – and no need to worry about reservations here – as long as you’re hiking out the next day, not a problem. Then on the 24th, we begin our hike! I’m so excited!
Here are some links I found useful when getting the reservation for wilderness permit stuff all set up:
Now, I have to go see about that beer…
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