Goal for the day: Make it to Bullfrog Trail Junction along the JMT

Sorry, again, but this report has a bunch of resupply musings that might not be that interesting to non-hikers (and some hikers too).

After the marathon hike the day before and having some trouble sleeping, I woke up a little later than normal. But that was fine. The skies were mostly clear of smoke, if not entirely clear. But there was some color from the sunrise that I enjoyed.

I started to have some blueberry granola for breakfast since I wanted to save my hot breakfasts for the final days of this epic trek, but then I realized that I had extra hot breakfast meals in my resupply package, so why not have a hot meal.

Before I finalized packing my gear and bear canister, I had to decide how many days it would take me to get to the top of Mt Whitney. I had been thinking over my options before my trek and also over the course of the last 20 days.

I had gone from Onion Valley, over Forester Pass (13,160 feet), and successfully summited Mt Whitney from the west three years earlier. So, I knew most of the rest of the JMT from that experience.

That’s part of the reason my main goal for this day had only been to get to the Bullfrog Lake Trail junction that was a mere 1.5 miles away from Charlotte Lake. That would mark the point where I had officially hiked every inch of the John Muir Trail.

The other reason was the last pass I had to go over was Forester Pass, which was nine and a half miles away and a 4,000 feet climb.

After the previous day’s long climb up to Glen Pass and the slow crawl down to Charlotte Lake, there was no way I could go all the way to Forester Pass. So, I was going to take it easy that day, decide what I needed from my resupply package, take my time packing my gear, and only hike partway to Forester Pass.

Although I had been amazed and pleased with how much trail I’ve been able to cover each day during my JMT trek, I knew I couldn’t do Glen and Forester Passes back to back. I remembered the hell Forester was by itself 3 years earlier. That was a very rough and long day. Plus, I started about three and half miles closer to the pass than I was at the lake.

So, the plan was to hike past where I had camped that time (a little past the bottom of Lower Vidette Meadows) and then as far as I felt like hiking that day. Very casual day for a change (kind of like the zero day at MTR).

I had some possible campsites in mind based on my trail info and what I remember from my previous hike up to Forest Pass, but I decided not to force myself to pick a particular target that morning and just choose based on how I felt in the afternoon.

So that was the plan for the first day of my final approach to Whitney.

The second day would be going over Forester Pass and then going down towards the Shepherd Pass Trail junction. Depending on my progress, I could camp around that junction or even press southward for Bighorn Plateau.

The third day would be going towards Mt Whitney, probably to Guitar Lake. That part of the trail didn’t have any freakin’ high passes to climb up and down, and should be a bit of a easy day before the final summit attempt.

So the fourth day would likely be when I try to climb to the summit of Mt Whitney and finish the 221 miles of the entire JMT in this single trek.

It felt so close.

There were some variables to also consider. The sunsets and sunrises from the top of Mt Whitney were fantastic! I know that because the last time I climbed Mt Whitney (the aforementioned Onion Valley to Mt Whitney trek) I spent a very cold night sleeping in the survey hut at the summit. The door to the hut had also been removed after being damaged in the winter storms of 2017, so that made it even colder.

It was worth it, though. 🙂

So, I did have the possibility that I might want to stay at the summit again during this trek.

The other way you could see the sunrise from the summit was to get up very early (2-3am) and climb up from Guitar Lake in the dark. I’d done that on Mt Fuji and Kilimanjaro, so it wasn’t impossible.

The third option was to stay at the little bivvy campsites at the junction of the JMT and MT Whitney Trail. You have to climb the switchbacks leading up the west side of Whitney first to reach those bivvy sites, but it did shorten the morning trek to the summit down to 2 miles and split the amount of elevation you had to climb into two chunks.

The good thing was I didn’t have to decide on day 21. I could wait and base the decision on how far I make it on day 23, the weather, how I feel, and my assessment at that time about my chance of success of even getting to the summit.

In the end, the main goal of this trek was to finish the entire JMT in one trek. Everything else was icing on the cake…

Mmmmmmmmmm… cake.

Since I didn’t have any cake with me, so I had a couple more Golden Oreos instead. 🙂

So with me pretty sure I could make it to the summit in 4 days, another day to hike the 11 miles from the summit to Whitney Portal, plus one more day of food (just in case of any problems) that meant I had to plan for 6 days of food.

Fortunately, with the resupply I had 7 days of food, plus some extra Ziplock bags full of granola. So I sorted through the food, picked what I needed, and I put the unneeded food in my garbage package for Berners to pickup. My other garbage from the last 7 days also went in there along with my near empty gas canister (I had gotten a new one from Berners). Other adjustments I made were to toss one pair of thick hiking socks and one pair of liner socks away, finish my last can of Diet Coke so the empty can could be thrown away as well, toss my near empty sunblock and bug spray (I had put full bottles of both in my resupply package), and toss my spare sports tape that I still had yet to use during this trek (thank you knee braces).

Two things I didn’t throw away from the resupply package were: A spare key to my Jeep so I could get into and drive my Jeep home (somewhat important) and a Whitney waste package. The later of which was… well… let’s just say that once you are in the Whitney Zone you can’t leave ANY solid waste behind. And that includes solid bodily waste.

Backpacking isn’t always glamorous… especially after 21+ days on the trail.

I pre-filtered 2 liters of water to start the day (plus the 20oz for my Gatorade bottle), finished packing my gear, and dropped off the garbage package at the ranger hut bear box.

Then I climbed up the switchbacks from the lake. Being fully rested, I didn’t curse at all that morning (I had used up all the curse words in the World when I climbed up to Glen Pass the day before, so I was out of them). 🙂

I rejoined the JMT at the Charolotte Lake junction and headed south towards Forester Pass. It didn’t take long to reach the Bullfrog Lake Trail junction. I took a little time to reflect on the fact that I had just completed the goal of hiking the final inches of the entire JMT (although over many years). Took some pictures to document the accomplishment, too.

The danger here was that I might decide that was good enough and abort out via Kearsarge Pass. Despite the hard hike the day before, I really had no real thoughts of stopping at that point.

I was only 29 miles away from the ultimate goal, there was nothing that was going to stop me at that point.

From there, I descended toward Vidette Meadows, a little confused by the switchbacks and long drop. I didn’t quite remember that from my previous hike down that part of the trail, but I did remember the part of the trail when the trees parted and I had a panoramic view of Vidette Meadows all the way up towards Forester Pass. Some things get burned into your memory. Grand vistas are one of them.

Once at the bottom of Lower Vidette Meadows, the trail started to climb slowly upwards. Nothing steep and no switchbacks of note, so it was an easy hike.

Getting past the spot I had previously camped along this trail, I kept going as long as I felt like continuing.

At that point I was starting to narrow down where I could stop and camp. From my previous climb up this trail three years earlier, I knew there was some great campsites with amazing views and water right before the final steep climb up to the pass.

There were also some sites described in my trail info about a half mile lower than those, but the water situation in late August was uncertain at those. It looked like they were a ways uphill from Bubbs Creek, so it’s hard to say if the creek could be reached from the trail or if there was a steep, rocky cliff. The later of which I’d seen many times on this trek.

In the end, I stopped about 5 miles short of Forester Pass when my body told me it was time to end for the day and I found a nice site near water that I could use to clean up and do some laundry with soap.

That decision was made easier since the trail started to get a little steeper after that point. While getting to the sites that had a better view would have been nice, there was only so far I could push my body before it broke down.

So, I stopped, setup my tent, freaked out a chipmunk (it was screeching like I’d never heard one do before), washed my smelliest clothing with soap, washed myself with soap, had dinner, and went to sleep.

Thankfully, no rain for the second day in a row.

Three days to Whitney…

6.75 miles hiked, 5:45 hours, 1,550 feet climbed
185 total miles hiked on the JMT

Highlights:
• Completed hiking every inch of the JMT over multiple hikes and years!
• Daily Goal Achieved!
• Second day in a row without rain!