John Muir trail Fastest known time attempt

After the hitch took a little longer than I hoped I arrived at Mt Whitney Portal around 10:30am. I quickly used the restroom and weighed my pack. It was a little heavier than I expected, about 25lbs. I spent entirely too much time deciding whether or not to pack a wag bag. They are required for human waste in the Mt Whitney zone. I already had a couple BMs so I figured I was in the clear. If things changed I could salvage a ziplock from my pack for that purpose and bury it on the other side. I grabbed a classic trailhead photo and was absolutely buzzing with excitement of the huge adventure ahead. At 10:40am I started my Garmin tracking and my GPS watch, too many silly things to keep track of. I touched the Mt Whitney sign one more time and away I went. 

The first 9 miles are a doozy. Just over 6,000 feet up towards the sun to tag Mt Whitney at 14,500ft. These miles kinda flew bye in a blur. Once I hit the 11,000ft mark I start to feel the altitude. However there is no other way to go but up. I hike through the legendary rocky switchbacks. A couple of guys resting on the side of the trail ask me if I’ve seen “two older guys with climbing gear.” I had to break it to them that I did not remember passing those individuals, but I’ve passed a lot of people and remember a few. 

At the summit spur I take a right hand turn and follow the winding rocky trail towards the summit. It takes a little longer to move at 14,000ft as I feel like I am stumbling forward rather than hiking. I reach that summit and take a couple selfies for the proof. I try not to lose my balance as I stop to take in the view for a minute. I have a quick chuckle at the man setting up the perfect photo with the summit sign and an American flag, yes I almost forgot which country I was in. He was hogging the metal summit sign so I found a plaque to take a photo with and I turned back around and headed back down. The summit spur trail is almost two miles long and once back at the junction I turned right into the wilderness. I am still moving with excitement and this begins to feel real. I move quickly, but keep my pace in check. This entire first 24 hours feels like it should be a warm up. 

Roughly 10 hours and 30 miles later I stopped as my headlamp was quickly becoming necessary. I was near Forester Pass, the highest pass on the JMT at 13,153 feet. I had been walking through an alpine basin staring at the low spot in the ridge where I was heading. I had not taken a sit down break yet. I set my pack down and took a seat on a rock step. The nice thing about hiking during nontraditional hours is you can sit on the trail, there is only a small chance you will be in the way of someone else. Once I stopped I unfortunately realized I had a solid headache. I try to convince myself it is the altitude. I restock my food and stuff every reachable pocket with calories. I put a battery in my headlamp. My hat and sunglasses go into my pack and I don a buff and headlamp for the next 10 hours or so. As the sunsets it got cooler out, I added a couple layers to my outfit for warmth. After putting everything away and double checking my surroundings I head off towards the pass. It quickly gets dark and I get situated with my night environment. 

A little further on I see headlamps in the basin ahead of me. Other headlamps are comforting at night. Once I get closer I exchange hellos with the couple, but I don’t stop. As I get past conversation distance I think I hear the women ask, “Are you going over the pass tonight?” I’m not sure if I actually hear that correctly so I ignore the lingering inquiry. I figured they would find out soon enough.

Climbing above 13,000 feet at night gets weird. Headlamps provide less spatial awareness and I got a little stumbly in the dark. The trail to Forester Pass winds up in the darkness. I have done the entire PCT in the same direction and even though it was 8 years ago I still have a sense for the trail. It helps guide me. Climbing up the switchbacks I always have a rock wall on one side of me and darkness on the other. I keep a hand against the wall to ground me as I climb higher and higher. At least the pass is free from snow and I reach the pass and peak over to the other side. Unfortunately it is completely dark and my headlamp empties into nothing. There is something comforting just following the splash of light at your feet. The white and tan colored rocks reflect a lot of light so I dim my headlamp. I started with 3 fully charged headlamp batteries and enough external batteries to charge them all again one time. I believe that means I can operate them at 200 lumens for the roughly 30 hours of total head light usage I'll need. 

Eventually I make it back down into the trees where darkness is a little more spooky. There are more shadows and more sounds. At this point I start to feel bad, I take a seat on a rock to assess the situation. In addition to my headache, my throat is sore and dry. I have been barely able to eat and have zero appetite. I assume it is just from the dry air at altitude and try to continue on. Of course my body doesn’t have an appetite, it’s the middle of the night and I’ve been hiking for over 12 hours. I continue for another two hours, I am very aware there is a side trail to exit out via Kearsarge Pass. I sat down again and thought things through.

I took off away from the trail junction and an intense chill shook my body. I hiked quickly to warm up. Was I actually cold or was my body in distress? Probably a little bit of both. Thankfully I continued up a hill and towards Glen Pass. In the darkness the trail winds and meanders to no end. With the dark silhouettes of ridgelines above me I am curiously wondering where I am heading. I do remember Glen Pass being rocky on both sides and the memory stood correct. The moon appears as a quarter crescent. I thought the full moon was just a week ago. Originally I wanted to take advantage of that for this attempt, but the timing was not right. At the top of the pass I click my headlamp off and look up at the stars. I take just a minute to appreciate the beauty above me. I have ten hours of night to navigate. With each passing hour I tally up what time is behind me and what time is in front of me. 

Hours of downhill later I reached the South Fork of Woods Creek just before sunrise. I decided to try out a little dirt nap here near the camp sites and bear box. I put my entire pack in the bear box and laid down with a rounded tree root as a pillow. I set an alarm for 20 minutes later. Even though I’m not tired I tell myself this should help in the long run. After about 15 minutes with my eyes closed I rise and decide to move on. I am too antsy to let myself drift off to sleep.

As the sun comes up it’s time to get moving, the trail follows Woods Creek and is gently climbing to Pinchot Pass. After Pinchot Pass the trail descends a little bit before heading back to Mather Pass. Mather Pass is roughly at mile 71 in the northbound direction. It felt nice to tick off two passes with only a short climb between them. I let the 4,000 foot descent carry me. This trail is like a rollercoaster. The daylight hours seemed to fly by. At the bottom of a valley I hit Palisade Creek and walk past numerous large groups and head into the night. A few of them make comments about the time of day, I just laugh and wave. At this point sharing warm food with friends does sound nice, but I’ve got a date with Muir Pass hut. As I get about halfway up the 10 mile climb to Muir Pass the sun sets. Going into the second night things start to get spicy. I am tired. There is nothing else to do, but climb. I am not tired enough to be seeing things, but I do get odd feelings. The trail up to Muir Pass is winding and I truthfully have no clue where it is taking me. My thoughts run wild, I have feelings of other humans around me. 

During the previous day I developed a general feeling that this FKT attempt is not going well. I am aware I am behind schedule. My body is not feeling 100% and my mental capabilities are struggling. Because of my dry throat I have been unable to keep up with my nutrition. In addition to this reducing my available energy it also means my pack is heavier than it should be.

As I get up to Muir Pass the temperature is cold. The wind coming through the pass is chilly, especially in my depleted state. I know I cannot sleep at this altitude without the shelter of the Muir Pass hut. Once I reach it I eagerly step inside. Thankfully it is vacant, I was worried about encountering strangers at 11pm at night here. The stone hut is warmer than it is outside. The rock structure continues to release thermal energy and warm the space to a reasonable temperature. To my joy I found a sleeping pad inside. I need to rest. My brian isn’t functioning well and I sit there for several minutes trying to decide what to do with myself. After eating and plugging in devices it’s roughly 11pm when I lay down to sleep. At this point the time doesn’t mean much, I just know I need sleep. I set my alarm for 2 hours later. Despite my sleepiness I have a hard time turning off my brain. I am thankful I am warm. If this hut wasn’t here I would’ve had to continue for another 3 hours to get to a safe sleep spot.

I woke up a few hours later. There’s a presence of people in the hut that already decided for me I needed to sleep more. So I snooze my alarm. This happens a couple more times before I snap out of it and realize I need to get up. I sit up and feel the disheveled nature I am in. I try my best to quickly transition back into hiking mode. I know it is cold out there and that drains my motivation. While my headlamp battery fully charged my personal battery did not. 

I think I left the hut around 3 or 4am. As soon as I step out I am shivering, my only respite is ahead of me. Hiking in the darkness the only thing I think about is light. I know I will feel better once the sun comes up, I just need to get there.

Later in the morning as I pass mile 98 I am feeling a little better. I decided I need to try one more time. I decided I will try to hold a 4 mph pace for as long as I can. Luckily the downhill helps and the next thing I know I am hammering up towards Seldon Pass. Jogging the uphills is possible. I hold that pace for 20 miles before my knee starts to hurt on the descent beyond Seldon Pass. Knee pain when descending is the worst. It’s one of those pains you know will only get worse. 

By the time lunch came around I completely threw in the towel and sat down next to a creek. Socks and shoes came off and I situated my body in the comfortable sunshine and placed my feet in the cold creek. I eat all the food I can and contemplate life. Because I haven’t eaten as much as I wanted to, this means my pack is heavier than I would like it to be. I eat every snack I can manage to reduce my pack weight. I sent out a couple “I’m quitting,” messages over the Garmin. After a relaxing while by the creek I packed my things and moved on. Doing something like this and saying “I’m quitting” doesn’t really mean much. You can only actually quit once you are out of the woods.

The situation became odd. Being in the middle of the JMT without a tent or sleeping bag and I was well aware it will take me a while to hike out. I spent a lot of the afternoon figuring out what to do, at the end of the day I just had to keep moving. There weren’t really any sufficient exit trails so north was the only exit. I spent endless hours doing trail math. Figuring out my pace and how much further I need to go. Trying to balance rapidly evolving variables in an ever changing situation.

I continued on late into the night and eventually took a dirt nap for some time just below Silver Pass. It wasn’t the worst nap I’ve ever taken. I folded myself into my space blanket and occasionally drifted off to sleep. I had some reassurance from a nearby presence that this was the way to do it. At some point before the sunrise rose, I was up hiking again. Much to my surprise on the northside of Silver I encountered two hikers going the opposite direction. They said something to me about how much fun it is to be hiking early, I only was able to respond with a grunt or a sarcastic laugh. Obviously they had no idea what I was dealing with. At this point I planned to exit out via Duck Pass and get to Mammoth Lakes. I wasn’t keeping the pace I needed and the attempt was definitely over. If I kept hiking towards Yosemite I would probably run out of food.

After a few days of wandering on the trail I forgot I was heading towards a popular trailhead on a holiday weekend. Goodness gracious, that was a rude welcome back to society. I had to show my permit to a National Forest Ranger and explain why I was exiting off the JMT. He told me a bear keg was required along the JMT, this is something I still don’t understand and haven’t found a rule that explicitly states this. For crying out loud I’m from Montana, these California black bears don’t scare me. The ranger didn’t understand that, but he did let me go on my way. On the way out I yelled at a couple hikers as they cut a couple switchbacks. You’re welcome, America.

Thankfully my friend Sara moved my car to this trailhead for me so I could make a quick entrance back into society. Once I made it to the parking lot I quickly opened my car and collapsed into a camp chair. I was a sweaty and filthy mess. An array of sweat stains and dirt tattoos covered my clothes and skin. The tourists circling the parking lot searching for a vacant parking spot knew better than to ask me if I was leaving. I phoned Jenn to let her know I was out and safe, we talked for awhile. I was a delirious and emotional wreck. Thankfully at this point I was safe and I was glad to be out. 

In the end I managed to travel 152 miles in 73 hours. This was 71 miles shy of my 3 day goal. This was a grand adventure, I love grand adventures. I am happy I tried this big and scary goal. Just 12 hours after I finished I texted Jeff and told him I would 100% try it again.