First Things First

Hi everybody. My name is Mark, and this summer I was lucky enough to go on a backpacking trip with my father and brother. We hiked what is known as the John Muir Trail (JMT for short). Starting in the Yosemite Valley floor, it runs South through the Sierra Nevada Mountain range in California and ends at Mt. Whitney at approximately 220 miles. We finished in 13 days and had an amazing time.

I have two main reasons for writing this blog. First, I want to share the experience I was lucky enough to have with my family and friends. I have a couple of friends who used this site to blog about their study abroad experiences, and I think this blog will be a better way to share than to upload a hundred photos to facebook with little to no context, or to simply say that the hike was "Great" when asked "How was your trip?". I will try to include some of the better photos, my hiking journal entries for each day and not much else. Short and sweet.

Secondly, I want to share our experience with other people interested in hiking this trail. Our hike took months of planning (lucky for me this was mostly done by my retired father), and one of the best guides we could find were the online hiker journals and blogs. Hopefully the descriptions of trails and campsites will be useful.

Lastly a few quick things: At the start of our hike I was 21 and weighed 170 lbs. My brother, Nick, was 19 and my father, Clint, was 57. Nick and my father hiked the JMT in 2010, but this was my first time. I had done several long distance backpacking trips in the past starting in 2007, but this was my first time hiking exclusively with my dad and brother. We hiked starting in September 2011, which is late for the Summer hiking season. 2011 was a record year for snowfall in the Sierras, so there was plenty of water in the streams and lakes on our trip. This also meant that there were plenty of mosquitos, but more about that later. Alright, here goes. 

From left to right: My father Clint, me (Mark), and my brother Nick