JMT: A New Hope

Day: 288

The concrete floor of this tent-cabin holds all the environments cold and causes a chilly sleeping space… (I guess I should have lit the little wood stove). I would easily prefer the dirt and rug combo of a Mongolian Ger anyday.

Back to the car and backtracking to Tuolumne Meadows to drop off our first food resupply and find some breakfast. Sitting there, enjoying my sausage, egg and cheese biscuit, I developed in my mind an easier JMT route that just might be possible. Instead of coming up from the valley floor to where we were currently sitting, we could start here and work our way down (saving 4000 vertical feet!) then catch the park shuttle back up here and hike the other way towards Mt. Whitney. A quick discussion and we decided it wouldn’t be cheating since the we’d still see the whole trail.

We wrapped up breakfast with a new hope in our heads and headed off to the permit office to see if my fictional route was plausible.

And guess what? IT WAS! Yeah us!

Unfortunately, it was possible, but only if we had made reservations six months before when we booked the rest of our trip…

DANG…

We recanted our hopes and settled back into the thoughts of our first day, 3000ft gain in 7 miles.

Driving into Yosemite Valley proper, we found the backpackers camp (of course the furthest site from tomorrows trailhead) and headed off for one last lunch at the Ahwahnee (a sweet looking hotel) with my sister before she left to head home and hang out with her daughters.

A lazy afternoon, with an air of nervous anticipation was spent puddering around our camp site.