JMT Class of 2012 - Who's going?

[Caveman of Ohio]

Just got done finishing up the Jmt this past Sunday.Had rain and some hail for about eight days of my hike. Started at Happy Isles on August 8 and finished on August 26. Stopped At Mammoth,Vvr,and Mtr. It was a great hike and met many nice people. Now I am off to do the Long Trail in September.

[BrianLe]

My wife and I had a great time hiking the JMT --- started from Happy Isles on the afternoon of Sept 8th, finished on the 24th, took a zero day at Reds Meadow to relax along the way.
Quite a different, but wonderful experience hiking this trail SOBO in September rather than NOBO in June (the first time I went through there). Kind of nice to see what the trail surface looked like in the upper elevations without snow, and some CCC (California Conservation Corps) volunteers were doing some amazing trail work on some pretty amazing trail.
Speaking of which, I had never been down (nor up) the Whitney Portal side before --- wow. I think I'd rather have dental work done than climb that sucker after driving in from near sea level, but it wasn't (just a bit slow in places) going down that way.

We had super weather, no bugs of course, and yet most of the time still just needed to carry a liter or so of water. We loaded up on food at MTR (Muir Trail Ranch) so we could skip Kearsarge Pass, so packs were a bit heavy going out of there. The spring scale at MTR said my pack was 32# and my wife's was 30# with all that food, but I suspect that scale reads low (?). And MTR was a repeat for me insofar as I found the people there very nice.

Only place we got our feet even wet on the trip was Evolution Creek and it was such an easy crossing there that I went barefoot to keep my shoes dry --- what a difference from crossing there in June (2008). Pretty easy to find camping spots --- we did see and interact with other people, but I'm sure it's more populated in July and August. I just brought a 30F rated bag and was fine (quite comfortable) in that with the addition of some clothing worn inside the bag. I'm sure that in some years that would be on the sketchy side, but it worked great this year.

I'm definitely sold on early September as a great time to start a JMT hike.

[Hole-In-The-Hat]

BrianLe, congratulations on the great trip!

We thruhiked the trail from 23 July until 5 August, and had a great trip. We picked up a resupply bucket at MTR in late July - their scale was definitely reading low, my guess is it was ~4 pounds off.

[colorado_rob]

We just finished the northern ~135 of the JMT this last Monday (10/1), starting at Bishop t/h (south lake), 10 days later ending at Happy Isles. Wow, what a fantastic trail, as was the southern JMT a couple years ago. Hard to say which section was better. I guess climbing Half dome punctuated the northern section nicely. I'll be grinning ear-to-ear for a while.

Couple of issues though, the only "negatives" on the trip, call them lessons learned:

Keep 100% Bear discipline! My wife inadvertently left an OP sac of drink mix in her pack one night at 1000-Island lakes. 2am, big noise, I poked my head out and watched a bear shred the bottom of her pack open. I chased it away (yelling and screaming), but it had done the damage, plus got away with our drink mix. Thankfully, we were able to hold her pack together using straps to complete the hike. But we lost our Starbucks Via's ! Oh, the hardship....

This time of year, plan water stops carefully! Big stretch of no water from upper Cathedral lake to a couple miles below Sunrise camp, and even there was merely a trickle. We knew about this and planned accordingly, but there were clueless and hapless folks along the trail w/o any water in that section. I told them there would be water a couple/few miles below sunrise, hope they found the trickle. I suspect that trickle will dry up soon.

Anyway, outSTANDing ~150 mile trip, including a nice little scamper up Half Dome to top it all off.