The John Muir Trail

I’ve been dreaming of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail for a couple of years now. I even started saving up money to realize this dream. But when I really think about it … I never backpacked for more then five days. Who says I like backpacking for 6 months? Maybe after one week I’ll be begging to go home and sleep in a comfortable bed without crawlies. Actually, I hope I can postpone that feeling for at least another 2 weeks, because our test hike will take a little over three weeks to complete.

This test hike I’m talking about is of course the John Muir Trail. The John Muir Trail is a long-distance trail in the US. It's about 340km and runs from Yosemite Valley to the top Mt Whitney. We’ve been doing quite a lot of planning and are now so ready –well, mentally at least– to hike. Unfortunately there has been a wildfire raging at Midpines which is very close to the entrance of Yosemite Valley. The main road to the valley is closed and people have been evacuated from the area. The firefighters are still fighting but the blaze has only been contained for 40%. Stupid people with their stupid firearms!

As I said, we’ve been doing a lot of planning. We’ve reserved a hiking permit, booked a flight to SFO, made hostel reservations, dried some food, ordered bear canisters, made Amtrak reservations, got a manicure (jus kidd’n), bought new hiking gear, dried some more food, got additional insurance and purchased two 20l buckets for shipping our food supplies. You only realize how much planning goes into such an ‘adventurous’ hike. Actually it doesn’t feel very adventurous at all really, having even planned even every meal. I hope I forget about all the planning as soon as we hit the trail and just think about … nothing much really and take in the views.

Only one more day to go at work and then we have the whole weekend to get packed. It sure sounds like plenty of time, but I know it’s going to be tight and we’ll be rushing to the airport on Monday morning. It’s a ritual when we travel by plane. Ate is stressed out by the whole idea of flying and I’m stressed about packing and possibly forgetting stuff. This makes for the perfect traveling atmosphere! Already looking forward to it :-)