JMT Planning 1 - The idea, the plan, and the permit proccess

JMT has been in my head for a while. After backpacking in Yosemite last year, reading more books, blogs, and learning more, the JMT has become a mission and one of my bucket list items. I have decided I really want to do it solo. Mostly because it will be a major accomplishment and I enjoy being alone but also to be honest… I am not sure I could be on the trail with someone for that many days. There are so many factors… how fast will I want to go one day, what time will I want to start, what if I just want to sit or take a dip in the lake, or if I am feeling good and want to do extra miles that day. I want to make all of those decisions by myself.
There have been SO many questions on my protection and the crazy looks I get when I say I am going solo. I often get asked if I am worried about the bears, the people, or the what ifs.
The only things that keep me up at night thinking are my feet and the weather. If you have ever hiked with me or seen my feet almost any day of the week then you know why. I get blisters and hot spots SO easily! I have tried different shoes, different socks, glide, moleskin, tape, and blister Band-Aids. The only thing that I have found to help is a combination of them all. Injini socks, the kind that go between your toes that I use to find SO annoying, prevent blisters between my toes – so they are a win. However, I still get blisters on the bottom of my big toes and heals on the inside and outside. So I typically do moleskin until it comes off due to sweat and then glide. I recently heard rubbing alcohol helps make the skin tougher… so yes I will be trying that. Any other suggestions are welcomed!
Then the weather! You can't control it, I am terrible at predicting it, and I am not a fan of thunder/lightning storms. So hoping there are not too many of these.


Planning this trip has become a little obsessive. Most of my free time and even some of the time that I should be working is spent:
Looking on blogs about what others did
Watching YouTube channels on people, girls, and anyone who has done it
Reading multiple of reviews on the “best gear”
Debating my pack situation
Debating my gear situation
Planning hikes I can do now
Calculating my “base weight”


Before any of this can really happen though I had to create a rough plan. I know I want to hike Southbound, meaning from Yosemite (ideally Happy Isles) to Whitney. So, how many days? To take or not to take zero (days with no hiking) or nero (days with close to zero miles) days? So this is about what I have decided. 18-20 days. Depending on how I feel will depend on the zero/nero days. Now that I know I want to do 20 days or less I need a plan A, B, and C.  And the calculating begins. How many hours will I really need off work. Will I really want to get off the trail and being alone that long and come back to work at 100%? Last time after 5 days, the noise level in the office drove me nuts. I have decided if I can afford the time that I will plan a couple half days. Days to ease back into it. I would also love to be able to work with my Friday off work schedule. My schedule is awesome, but also doesn’t really do much good when you are taking off about 3 weeks. Plus, I will need the additional travel time to Lone Pine and to Yosemite. Then maybe a night in Lone Pine when I finish and then back to my house! I figure I need about 133 hours of vacation time. On the day I am currently writing this – I only have 44 hours. I do the math for each week to figure out the EARLIEST I can do this trip is starting August 12th – but then I do not get an extra day off with Labor day holiday… so that pushes my start day would be August 18th. However, my ideal date would be for my permit on August 21st. I am really worried about getting a permit and starting too late in the season. In order to have the largest window of time to apply multiple days - I will be applying for my permit to start on August 15th. My ideal permit would be starting at Happy Isles with pass through. However, I am listing multiple trailheads are listed on my permit. I also need an exit of Donahue… which only 45 people get per day (which may sound like a lot but there are a LOT of people who do not get permits and all the exit permits are by reservations). From the Happy Isles group only 20 people per day get them. Because I am applying for only 1 spot I do have higher chances. I can also apply for the half dome permit with this… which I am not sure. I have done half dome 2 times already and it was awesome but at the same time I think I would rather try clouds rest (no extra permit required). For now – I sit and wait. I will have all my permits filled out and ready to go for about 5 days and get ready to start the process!

Strawberry Junction Gear Shakedown

Feb 27-28
Gear Check!

I recently got into a couple facebook groups for hikers/backpackers because I wanted to gain more experience and love reading from other people! My parents were in town but planning on going to Arizona so I had a last minute free weekend come up. Someone posted about doing a Saturday/Sunday trip and I jumped in on it. We started a little late because I had to get gear ready and take my parents to get a rental car. I met her at her house and we went to Idyllwild/ San Jacinto area. We stopped by the Ranger Station and picked up a permit for $5 each.

She said that we may be the only ones staying at Strawberry Junction. We didn’t start hiking until later afternoon. We made it up to Strawberry Junction a couple hours before sunset. We got set up. Enjoyed the sunset from the top of a boulder and made dinner. It was still pretty cold so we ended up going to our tents pretty quickly after dark. I read a little on my phone and ended up falling asleep pretty quickly. I hadn’t been feeling well so it was nice to go to sleep! I woke up in the middle of the night to what seemed like something smelling my tent. I am not really sure what it was but the ranger did report a mountain lion was spotted around the area recently. In the morning we debated heading up to the peak or not but we both were not feeling great. We made breakfast, packed up, and headed back down. It was a perfect quick trip to make sure I was happy with all my gear in the colder weather and everything worked out great! It was great to meet someone else who loves the outdoors and backpacking and hopefully we will be able to do another trip!