Back from the Sierra Nevadas

Scott Mitchell — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 05:05:00 GMT

As I mentioned earlier, this summer my wife and I embarked on travels spanning the globe, from Korea to a 70-day road trip across the country, to a planned 220+ mile backpacking trip through the High Sierras. Well, we are back from our trip in the High Sierras, thus concluding our summer of travel and squarely returning us back to reality and normalcy. I plan on writing a detailed post about our backpacking trip, but for now I just want to provide a quick recap...

Unfortunately, we didn't achieve our goal of hiking the entire John Muir Trail. Instead, we only made it about half way (a total of 130 miles) before severe blistering issues prompted us to exit the trail prematurely. It was a hard decision to make, but the correct one in the end. After several days of backpacking and carrying all that extra weight on your back, your feet start to swell. My wife's boots were a perfect fit for her feet's normal size, but as her feet started swelling, she started getting blisters all over her feet, from the tips of her toes, her heels, the sides of her feet, and on her soles. She soldiered through the pain for several days before we jointly decided that enough was enough and that it was wiser to put her health and comfort ahead and completing the trail.

Despite having to exit the trail, we had a great first half and hiked over 110 miles on trails we had never explored beforehand. It was my first visit to Yosemite, my first time seeing Half Dome or El Capitan in person, our first visit to 1,000 Island Lake (see below), our first decent to Tully Hole, our first time over Donahue, Silver, and Seldon Passes, and our first time visiting Muir Trail Ranch. The weather this year was very dry, which resulted in less than ideal scenery: the mountains had far less snow on them, the meadows were brown instead of green, and there were few wildflowers along the way. However, dry seasons have their advantages as they greatly reduce the number of mosquitoes and other biting insects and make stream crossings much easier.

In any event, it's great to be back in town and to settle back down.

UPDATE [2007-11-17]: I have blogged about each of the 14 days of our JMT hike. You can start at Our 2007 John Muir Trail Attempt (Day 0 and Day 1) or go directly to the hike wrapup, which has a link to each of the day's corresponding blog entry. You can also view pictures from the trip.

The Upcoming Summer of Travel!!

Scott Mitchell — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:44:00 GMT

This past summer my wife and I embarked on a seven-day backpacking trip through the High Sierras along a portion of the John Muir Trail. I blogged about this in a previous entry here on ScottOnLife.com: Week Long Backpacking Trip in the High Sierras Completed. During our jaunt, we hiked along about 40 miles of the JMT through the break taking Evolution Valley, up to Evolution Lake, and over Muir Pass. These 40 miles we covered were but a preview of the trail, seeing as it stretches over 210 miles from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney (and then another 20 miles or so from Mt. Whitney to civilization).

Shortly after finishing our seven day trek in the summer, my wife and I discussed tackling the entire trail. She expressed how it was a challenge she'd like to tackle as I tried to envision what it would be like to go without a shower, a mattress, laundry service, indoor plumbing, and warm, non-dehydrated food for three weeks. (To be fair, there are some developed campgrounds and even a resort along the first half of the trail, where it is possible to launder your clothes, have a hot shower, use the restroom without having to dig a hole in the ground, and to eat real food. But still.)

Despite craving the creature comforts of civilization, such backpacking is enjoyable as it clears the mental cobwebs and concerns and worries and stresses and pressures better than anything else. There's something about the serenity of the wilderness, the utter physical exhaustion, and digging holes to poo in that sort of puts the brain into a semi-comatose state where there are no worries, no distractions, and no errant thoughts. There's just walking and soreness, and the soreness does fade over time. The walking, however, is constant.

In any event, we decided that if we didn't tackle the JMT sooner than later, we'd look up one day, with a couple of trouble making kids scampering around the abode, and have regrets that we didn't tackle this trail while we had the stamina, freedom, and flexibility. So we promised ourselves last fall that we would do the JMT this summer. This involves a lot of planning, mind you, so it's not something you can say, "Hey, let's do the JMT this weekend." Firstly, you need a permit and they only give out a limited number of them each year. The permits are first come, first serve, and are available starting six months in advance of the departure date when the ranger's station opens in the morning. For more popular starting dates - weekends, usually - the day's permits can be gone before lunchtime. In addition to the permits, you need to plan the trip's logistics. There are a handful of resuppy points where you can drop off or mail non-perishables to pick up during your trip so that you don't have to carry three week's worth of food and supplies starting from day 1 on the trip. Many of these resupply points require shipping the supplies at least a month in advance, if not two. In any event, back in February we secured our departure date in August and we recently finalized our supply list and packed and organized and our resupply packages.

Talking about and planning for the JMT brought up other grand ambitions. Many years ago I read Studs Terkel's book Working, which is a sociological look at Americans and their work. It was written in the 1950s, if I recall correctly, and is full of one- to five-page interviews conducted by Studs. The interviewees tell Studs about their work: what they do, how they do it, how they got started, what they like about it, what they hate about it, and so on. He interviews a wide array of people and jobs, from illegal immigrants working hard manual labor jobs to CEOs, and everything in between. What I most enjoyed about that book was the cross-section of America it offered, how it all sort of fits together, and how we are all much more alike than we are different.

I've traveled throughout a good portion of this country, but traveling focuses on the endpoints too often. I drive of fly from point A to point B ignoring what comes in between. Reading those interviews, though, showed that there is a story in between. While the metropolitan areas and tourist hotspots might be the most exciting parts of any country, it's only a tiny slice of it. The rest of the country, while not as glitzy, still has a story to be told.

I would like to see what comes in between points A and B. I would like to enjoy this country's natural scenery that, too often, I only saw from 30,000 feet. To this end, my wife and I (and Sam, our fearless Terrier) are embarking on an ambitious road trip this summer, starting in mid-May and extending until early August. Our plan is to putter around this immense country, taking in the sights, the places, the people. Visiting friends and family. Exploring new cities. Hiking and camping in new national forests and wildernesses. I think it will be an interesting experience and one, like the JMT, is an opportunity that can too easily pass and become a regret.

And if that's not enough travel for one season, we have a two-week trip to Korea that departs in a few days.

During this traveling we will be "working" as little as possible and our connection to the Internet, email, IM, and so on will be radically cut back from several hours a day to probably just a couple hours a week. My wife's last day at her company was yesterday and I've put my consulting projects on hold. My main writing commitment over the past year - the Working with Data in ASP.NET 2.0 tutorials series - has been completed. The only commitments that need to be kept during this trip is my weekly 4GuysFromRolla.com article and monthly Toolbox column in MSDN Magazine. This should give us a chance to recharge and reinvigorate and come back with a renewed focus and intensity on work. My wife will be joining me to work on consulting projects, and we are always kicking around ideas for commercial components/web applications we would like to create and sell.

We are both looking forward to this time off to recharge and reflect as well as the travels to Korea, the road trip across the US, and our long walk through the High Sierras. Should be a fun and interesting summer!

UPDATE [2007-09-11]: We're back! I've recapped the various trips this summer A Recap of Our Trip to Korea; From Sea to Shining Sea (our road trip); and Our 2007 John Muir Trail Attempt.

Scott on Life : Travel, Nature

Back from the Sierra Nevadas

The Upcoming Summer of Travel!!