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The Agony and the ��ϳԹ�� of Hiking the John Muir Trail in a Week

POM Administrator — Fri, 26 May 2023 12:21:33 +0000

How big of an adventure can you pull off on a weeklong vacation? That all depends on how fast you can walk—and how much suffering you can take. Michael Lanza found plenty of both when he decided to hike the JMT of the course of 7 days. Sound like a good time? We’ve reached deep into our archive to reshare his 2007 piece on the experience here. —The Editors

“Umm, hey buddy, you OK?”

It’s 4:30 a.m., a time of day that puts us in the questionable company of cat burglars and alpinists. Our headlamps probe the inky, moonless black of Yosemite Valley. We’re taking our very first steps on the 221-mile John Muir Trail. And my friend Mark Fenton is staggering violently, like a frat boy on a weekend bender.

“No problem, just a little vertigo I get hiking in the dark. I’ll be fine.” He lurches near the edge of the trail–which drops off into the dark roar of the Merced River far below.

That’s when we dub him Stumbles. It was funny, at the time, because everything is funny and fun and easy when you’re motoring effortlessly uphill at the outset of a long hike and your pack only clocks in at about six pounds. Besides, we’re in Yosemite, a place crazy with distractions: In the faint first light, we stride beneath the ghostly shimmer of 600-foot Nevada Falls. Deer bound away silently in the chill air of dawn. Stars twinkle. Mountain winds whisper. At mid-morning, from ledges at 9,000 feet, we go slack-jawed at a shark’s grin of peaks: Tenaya, Cathedral, Matthes Crest. The breathtaking thing is, we’re lording over just a small taste of what’s to come on the JMT: almost-constant alpine vistas of snow-slathered mountains and jagged granite spires. Passes at 12,000 and even 13,000 feet. And a constellation of lakes reflecting it all upside down.

We’ve all dreamed of hiking this trail, but we’re also out here testing a theory: that, by going ultralight, we can collapse a three-plus-week trip into seven days of vacation. We’re taking what Ray Jardine preached in The Pacific Crest Trail Hiker’s Handbook back in the 1990’s–a then-controversial gospel that called for traveling 30 miles a day with a base pack weight of less than 10 pounds–to a questionably logical extreme. Back when I used to carry 50-pound loads on a regular basis, I could barely hike 10 miles a day. When I trimmed things down to 40 pounds, then 30, then even less, hikes of 15 or 20 miles felt close to effortless.

Which, inevitably, started me thinking about long trails. I soon learned that fit hikers going überlight were sailing “America’s most beautiful trail,” as the JMT is often called, in just 10 days. A Muir Trail veteran told me that “30- to 40-mile days are totally doable.” Unfortunately, where another hiker might think that pounding out 31 miles a day for a solid week sounds just slightly over the top, I’m like Evel Knievel contemplating the Grand Canyon: My altered brain chemistry rationalizes, “How hard could that be?”

Before long, I’d convinced myself that thru-hiking the JMT in seven days was not only feasible but would even, quite possibly, be enjoyable. Honing my sales pitch, I assembled a team of the blissfully ignorant. I told them to get in the shape of their lives. I gave them four months. Fenton took 5 a.m. speed hikes on the rocky trails of the Blue Hills Reservation outside Boston. Todd Arndt did hours-long trail runs in the Boise foothills. Heather Dorn, from eastern Pennsylvania, ground out 25-mile day hikes in blistering heat on the Appalachian Trail. I eventually built up to a one-day, 32-mile jaunt in New Hampshire’s White Mountains with Fenton–10,000 feet of ups and downs.

Now, on the JMT, it’s paying off. Not to sound cocky, but we’re chewing up distance. We roll into Sunrise High Sierra Camp–nearly 13 miles out–by 10 a.m., as fresh as if we just walked around the block. Come afternoon, the heat is draining, but by then we’re chowing on burgers, fries, and shakes at the Tuolumne Meadows café at around mile 22. Most JMT thru-hikers take two days or more to get here.

But we’re far from done with this day: Picking up our camping gear and a resupply of food in Tuolumne, our full loads now weigh a skimpy 18 pounds. We hike until the dusk bleeds to dark, pitching our tarps near a windswept, alpine tarn in Lyell Canyon. We pass the ibuprofen like we’re doing shots, rub sore-but-not-too-sore feet, and take stock. On our first day, we’ve walked 34 miles, with 7,000 feet of uphill. Mark’s pedometer reports an astonishing tally: We’ve taken 72,376 steps. We should look like boot-camp washouts, but instead we’re just kind of tired. As we take an icy dip in the lake, below a skyline littered with granite cliffs, Stumbles tells me giddily, “You know what? I can’t believe how good I feel.”

I smile, naively, thinking: We’re gonna make it.

“This is the best I’ve felt on this entire trip.” Todd announces this as we bask in the sun after a frosty mid-morning swim in Purple Lake, pinched within a horseshoe of unnamed 11,000-foot peaks. Which is strange, and maybe a little bit shocking, because since leaving Yosemite Valley exactly 54 hours ago, we’ve walked 72 miles. How? We hit the trail by 5:30 a.m. to take advantage of the cool temps. Manic, we pass tents closed to the prehistorically quiet forest. All morning, we hurtle past backpackers humping huge loads, sweating salty rivers. We overhear their comments–”Those guys are bookin’!”–and repeatedly explain our big-mileage game plan. No one calls us crazy. In fact, they all say, “I gotta try that, too.”

The JMT in August is not a place you normally go for solitude. But all those traditional backpackers–with their big loads and deluxe kitchens–don’t get moving until mid-morning and quit by 5 p.m. Which means that during the day’s finest hours, we have the Sierra to ourselves. Early and late, the sun casts long shadows across alpine gardens littered with granite boulders; alpenglow paints summits gold; and stillness pervades amphitheater views over Donohue Pass, Thousand Island Lake, and Silver Pass.

But then our mornings of frenzied energy bend into afternoons of withering heat. And calling the JMT dusty is like calling K2 breezy. As early as our second afternoon, inhaling swirls of chalky earth, I turn to Stumbles and say, “I hope this isn’t starting to feel like a death march.”

He pauses too long, then deadpans, “It has some aspects of that.”

Every day, too, our feet ache a little more. Our blisters start to pulsate. On our fourth afternoon, we stop beside the South Fork San Joaquin River and peel off our shoes and socks for a therapeutic soak. I half expect our dirt-blackened, overheated soles to boil the water, cartoon-like. Instead, I get an elated jolt of frigid energy–it’s never felt so damn good not to feel my feet. But then, reality: We commence The Ritual of the Tape, strategically covering hot spots. Todd and Mark tape over wounds that look like small stratovolcanoes. Heather’s feet look the worst: She’s wrapping all 10 toes.

By that evening, Stumbles and I are climbing the switchbacks along Evolution Creek’s fantastically endless succession of roaring waterfalls, which almost make me forget that my legs feel like wood. The sound drowns out my creeping doubt; the water, tumbling downhill, somehow keeps tugging me up. The indifferent wilderness has seen countless struggles here, but it buoys me anyway. The scenery is morphine, and I’m a lab chimp constantly pushing the button for another dose. Then Stumbles looks at me with sunken eyes. “I’m pasted,” he confesses. We wait an hour for Heather and Todd to catch up; when they do, at dusk, it’s clear that Heather’s struggling. Still, she insists we hike until 9 p.m., because we’ve fallen behind schedule.

So we limp–and Stumbles weaves–in the dark up to a smooth granite slab near Evolution Lake. We lay our bags out under a sky machine-gunned with stars. Utterly prone, our legs and feet resting, the world instantly becomes a better place, the many miles a deluded memory. Comforted by the almost-silence of a wilderness night, we cling to the loitering hope that we still might pull this off.

At some point, The Thing That We Want To Do morphs into This Thing That We Have To Do. It may have happened way back on that second afternoon, when Stumbles and I deliberated the precise meaning of “death march.” Maybe it happened this morning, our fifth, when things nearly unraveled: Our mystical sunrise hike past Evolution, Sapphire, and Wanda Lakes turned into an endorphin-charged rush up and over 12,000-foot Muir Pass (“Big rebound for me!” cried Stumbles), but then it devolved into a pathetic two-hour power nap beside a creek in LeConte Canyon. (We were waiting for terminally blistered Heather, who dropped hours and miles behind after we left camp at first light.) Maybe it’s when we finally bid farewell to her–after she limps up to us, promptly announces she’s done, and decides to hobble out a side trail. Then again, it might just be because we’ve blitzed 135 miles in four and a half days, and we like resting in the LeConte shade, but resting costs us precious time. And we have to move. And moving is starting to suck. The prospect of another 86 miles in a little over two days seems, to say the least, daunting.

But we pick ourselves up and struggle on, like Napoleon into Russia, toward the JMT’s hardest climb–a 4,000-foot ascent to 12,100-foot Mather Pass. We scale literally hundreds of switchbacks, shooting-gallery ducks ticking back and forth. Squinting into the nuclear sun, my brain insists there are turkey vultures circling overhead, waiting to peck my blisters. I’ve known tired intimately: College wrestling practices that left me unable to lift my arms. A seven-day ski traverse in Yellowstone made epic by a five-foot dump of snow. But this takes the feeling to a new level: My mind seems separated from my body, insisting on uphill step after uphill step while my flesh moans silently. I reach the wind-chilled pass at 7:30 p.m., today’s mile 27. The sunset lights up lenticular clouds that crown nearby peaks like orange toupés. The lakes below sparkle like costume jewelry. My legs are cement posts. It’s absolutely spectacular. Todd is waiting in a thin down jacket; Stumbles has forged ahead to find a campsite in the dying light. We’re too gassed to wonder if this is a good idea.

Morning six. We’re descending mutely from Pinchot Pass when a voice calls from below. Mark Godley, a friend who’d planned to meet us for the hike’s final two days, snaps us from our walking coma; his freshness infects us. He’s arrived just in time: We have 60 miles to go by tomorrow night.

Afternoon six. Again, the Sierra resuscitates us. We take a quick dip in Dollar Lake. Then, a bit later, we scramble onto enormous glacial-erratic boulders for an elevated view of pearly Rae Lakes. Flirting with heat exhaustion on the 3,500-foot, nine-mile ascent to Glen Pass, at 11,978 feet, we string out.

Alone, Stumbles pauses to grab a snack from his lid pocket and notices the sack containing his eyeglasses and contact-lens kit is gone. He’s suddenly consumed by the terror that he’ll be unable to clean his hard lenses for the rest of the hike, and they’ll dry out and get itchy and sticky and cause him permanent corneal damage and quite possibly blindness. Moments later, Godley trots up to find Stumbles’ pack contents strewn over the ground. The man is sweating like Chauncey Billups, swearing like Samuel L. Jackson. “You gotta be kidding me! So stupid! I can’t keep going! It’s over!”

Speaking slowly and calmly, as one might to heavily armed hostage-takers, Godley reassures poor Stumbles that he’ll be fine, talks him out of his delusional plan to backtrack, and persuades him to continue on.

“My feet hurt too much to stop anymore. I’m going to just keep moving. I’ll see you at Whitney Portal.”

Todd tells me this, with madman eyes. I try to comprehend, but the throb in my soles is sending tremors to my ear canals, or something. He’ll be fine. It’s day seven. We’ve just dragged ourselves over the stunningly stark granite moonscape of 13,120-foot Forester Pass, and it never occurs to me that Todd, a competitive distance runner, might actually run half the 30 sun-baked miles left on this megaschlep (which, in fact, he does).

Hours later, in the warm, slanting rays of evening, Stumbles and I lumber up to Trail Crest junction, a wide ledge chiseled from Whitney’s cliffs at 13,620 feet. Godley labors somewhere behind us. The trail continues to the 14,495-foot summit, an out-and-back hike of four miles. Todd’s pack sits here; he’s gone for the top. But it’s not for me–my legs are too cooked. There’s a red stain blossoming on my sock, Curt Schilling-style, but I can’t summon his strength, not after days of this. Hobbled by his own blisters, Stumbles dreads the approaching nightfall.

All that remains is the Mt. Whitney Trail’s 8.5-mile, 5,000-foot descent. It’s a big day by any normal measure, but we’ve taken 500,000 strides this week, so it doesn’t sound so dismaying. Our trek will culminate at 10:00 tonight with its longest day: 35 miles and 18.5 hours. We’ll feel elated over what we’ve done, because there’s something redeeming in reaching the brink of self-destruction without plummeting over the edge. Something rewarding, in that twisted, unhealthy way that makes mothers worry and gives masochists a reason to live. And, if nothing else, we answered this trip’s motivating question: The ultralight movement isn’t all hot air and hype, sawed-off toothbrushes and tissue-thin sleeping bags. Our gear was tops. Our training was solid. Otherwise, we never would have made it at all.

In fact, the only piece of equipment that has yet to be engineered for these kinds of daily miles is the human body. Or maybe the human foot. Sure, we trimmed down our loads–but what we really did was trade the throb of sore shoulders for the bark of badly blistered toes. Maybe there are a few people out there with some combination of superhuman endurance and heavily cushioned insoles who can make these miles in a modestly pleasurable fashion. The rest of us will want to take the ultralight movement and adapt it to something more realistic: say, a 10-day assault of the JMT, about 22 miles a day, with a pack that comes in a hair under 25 pounds (see “The Plan,” page 78). A hike that still doesn’t take away all your vacation days, but doesn’t turn your feet into mincemeat. A hike that’s faster and lighter and humane, so that you can still experience all that is great about John Muir’s wilderness without it being obscured by a fog of pain.

Or by lack of sleep. Or, for the unlucky few, by a case of vertigo. As Whitney’s granite spires fade into darkness, it’s time for our mascot to perform. Sure enough, from behind me comes the sound of something large crashing through brush, and I spin around–though I’m perfectly, wearily calm. I know it’s not a bear.

My headlamp beam falls on a pair of legs sticking out, upside-down, from a bush. Stumbles is kicking like an overturned turtle. “Go ahead, I’ll be fine,” he says, his voice muffled by what sounds like leaves in his mouth. I extend a hand to him, thinking it’s been a very, very long week.

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Trend Report, Part 1: Tough Is the New Green

objmigrationbot — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:23:00 +0000

Strictly speaking, you don’t need to justify making durable products for the outdoors. “It’s just the right thing to do, to make equipment that isn’t going to fail in the field,” said Mystery Ranch project manager Luke Buckingham, speaking of the brand’s legacy of producing long-lasting packs.

That design ethic drove the early evolution of the outdoor industry, and while it’s still embraced by many brands, we’ve also seen a trend toward flimsier fast-and-light gear, as well as influence by the broader consumer culture that favors everything new. But as more outdoor brands—and their customers—chase a sustainable future, they’re embracing product longevity in a new way. In a movement that’s gathering momentum, brands are recognizing and communicat- ing that durability should be the first rule of reducing environmental impact.

Of course, that doesn’t mean no impact. “Nothing any company in this industry does is sustainable. Everything we do is environmentally negative—it’s largely oil-based products,” said Joe Vernachio, president of Mountain Hardwear, which has pledged that 80 percent of all materials used in its products will be recycled by 2024. “The best thing we can do to keep our impact in check is make really good things that people fall in love with and use over and over.”

Making the connection between durability and sustainability will be a key part of achieving that goal. “We’re in the process of starting to put [that message] out in front,” he said. “For us, it’s going to be ‘love the jacket you have, repair it, use it, instead of just buying the latest, newest thing.’”

That’s not an entirely new message, of course. Patagonia famously said as much in its 2011 “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad. But what’s new is the number of brands that are embracing the imperative and communicating it to consumers. Arc’teryx, for example, is making it a brand priority. “While durability has always been part of our brand messaging and what our customers value about our product, we have increasingly articulated the connection between durability and sustainability,” said Katie Wilson, senior manager for social and environmental sustainability. She points to last year’s launch of Arc’teryx Used Gear, which has a clear message for consumers: “This program helps get the most use, and reuse, out of each Arc’teryx item, keeping Arc’teryx products in action and out of the landfill.” Patagonia’s Worn Wear program does the same, and REI is testing a pilot program that allows customers to sell used gear back to REI.

Measuring Durability

The renewed emphasis on durability and its sustainability promise begs a question: How long should gear last?

That’s not an easy question to answer. The amount of use—and abuse—a product endures varies. And while brands test and measure the durability of materials and construction methods, there’s no standardized testing for finished products. Plus, there’s the matter of intended use. A just-in-case ultralight jacket isn’t as bombproof as an all-weather shell, but it can still last for years when used as intended.

While many brand representatives express skepticism about creating a durability standard similar to, say, the EN standard for rating the warmth of sleeping bags, Christiane Dolva, head of sustainability at Fjällräven, says they’re involved in a project with the Textile University in Sweden researching how to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to create exactly that: a standard for measuring durability.

In the meantime, should brands quantify their durability goals? Several months ago, Mystery Ranch began creating a two-pronged sustainability plan headed up by Buckingham, examining both sustainability—in materials, supply chains, and such—and durability. Mystery Ranch employs methods like doubling the fabric on pack bottoms and using heavy-duty zippers to ensure progress on the latter. Buckingham estimates a pack lifespan of “eight to ten years as a good benchmark for regular use.” He says many of the packs that come in for warranty are that old.”

As designers attempt to navigate these two tracks—sustainable materials and durability—they sometimes have to walk an awkward tightrope. Dolva says Fjällräven has found that recycled wool nearly matches virgin wool, but often needs some mixing with synthetic (read: oil-based) material for reinforcement. High-tenacity and chemically recycled polyesters nearly match the durability of virgin polyester, but with mechanically recycled polyester, durability drops off by 10 to 15 percent.

And then there are DWRs, or durable water-repellent treatments. The most effective DWRs are made with highly toxic chemicals, notes Vernachio. Eco-friendly versions don’t perform as well, and even though they can be reapplied, most consumers don’t go to the trouble. “People will only use a jacket [with an inferior DWR] for a year or two and then it will end up in a landfill,” he said.

Growing Demand

How much do outdoor consumers care about—or even understand—durability’s connection to sustainability?

“There is a growing consumer aware- ness around taking care of and making re- pairs to products to prolong their lifespan,” Dolva said. “The connection to sustainability is perhaps not always clear, but that’s okay. If the motivation behind a consumer purchase is the desire to own a product they will wear and love for a long time, the sustainability factors are an added bonus.”

REI, which is a driving force for most industry trends, is also seeing consumers make the connection. “We’re continuously hearing from our customers that they want high-quality gear that’s built to last, all while minimizing our impact on the environment,” said Greg Gausewitz, REI’s product sustainability manager. “Every product has a footprint, but in turn every product is an opportunity to fuel a movement for good.”

The media has a role to play in this movement as well. Eli Bernstein, gear editor at Backpacker, notes that while his team has spotlighted many green products in recent years and testers have critiqued product durability since the magazine’s first gear reviews were published, the connection between the two is a concept writers and editors should be promoting as well.

Bernstein cites a recent Backpacker review of Osprey’s new Archeon pack as an example. The review lauds its green materials, such as 100 percent recycled industrial scraps and a PFC-free DWR. But it also praises the 1,880-denier nylon canvas which “means this might just be the last daypack you ever buy (nothing’s greener than gear that doesn’t need replacing).”

And it’s not just consumers who matter. Vernachio makes the point that Mountain Hardwear “wouldn’t be able to attract an employee under the age of 35 if we didn’t have a point of view on our impact on the environment. It’s one of the first questions people ask in an interview, regardless of the job.”

Getting the Message Right

It’s hard to make the case that any outdoor company has made sustainability central to its mission and brand marketing more consistently and effectively than Patagonia. As Corey Simpson, Patagonia’s communications manager, said, “This is what we’ve been doing for a really, really long time. We want it to be a social contract. We want you to take responsibility and we’ll take responsibility, too.”

But that message has required decades of cultivation. Simpson acknowledges it won’t be easy for some brands to sell the concept that durability equals sustainability to their customers. “It’s really hard,” he said. “I talk to other brands and offer positive advice, but a lot of time a pivot like this feels foreign, it’s expensive, it’s not a language they can speak easily to their customer base. But those who stay committed are going to see success. For brands who just see it as a bullet point describing the company, it’s not going to work and it doesn’t stick around.”

In an era when so many consumer goods—like electronics and fashion—get constantly updated and replaced, can the outdoor industry succeed by going in the opposite direction and selling products that discourage consumerism?

If history is any guide, the answer should be clear. The industry’s past revolved around making gear that lasts, and its future will, too.

This story originally ran in the Summer 2020 issue of The Voice.��

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