Day 1

Today is the day! It is finally here! Oh my gosh! Am I ready? Do I have everything? Let me check my gear again, even though I just checked it last night, and the night before, and the night before that... Ok. Yes. I think I have everything I need. 

Breathe. 

Time to take pack up! Ok. Load the car. 

Breathe. 

Get in the car. 

Breathe. 

I don't remember much of that morning. I don't remember what all was said. I don't remember what music was playing in the car on the drive down to the valley. I don't remember looking at anything out my window. I must have been pretty focused... Or more like pretty nervous. 

I had everything I needed. I had prepared for this for months. I had a great support system of family and friends. What could I possibly be so nervous about!? Doing it on my own? Possibly. Venturing out into unfamiliar wilderness? Possibly. Hurting my knee again? Absolutely. So many thoughts... But no time for them! We were finally at the parking lot! 

The trailhead was another 1/4 mile down the road, but for some reason we couldn't get to it as access was restricted. So, Donny stopped the car at the edge of the parking lot and helped me get out and get situated. One last hug and some words of encouragement and off I went. And away he drove. No turning back now...

One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. I have this! I can do it! 

I got down to the trailhead and ran into a couple guys sitting at the bus stop. They had packs on and I could tell that they were JMTers too. John and Franklin. They were waiting for 2 other friends to get there. We talked for a little and figured we would see each other down the trail later in our journey. I was glad to have met them. They didn't make me feel so alone. 

Finally, I'm at the trailhead! Ready to start my adventure!  I took a selfie and then this nice couple offered to take my picture for me. 

Their names were Mike and Jill. We ended up walking and talking for a decent amount of time. Turns out they also live in Lakeside! Small world. They were such warm people and it was comforting and encouraging to talk with them. I told them about my hike and about some of the things that were going on in my life. Before we parted ways, they hugged me and prayed for me. We exchanged contact information and I still keep in touch with Mike to this day. He checks my blog and Hike with Keirnan Facebook page. (Mike, I want you to know that you and Jill made an impact on my life in that short amount of time we talked. I will never forget the two of you.)

Some time later after my hike, Mike sent me a picture of him and Jill. I was so grateful to have this picture to remember them by! 

As I continued my hike, I realized that I didn't know if I was on the right path. The trail I was on splits into two: The Mist Trail  and the John Muir Trail. While they both connect above Nevada Falls, only one is the JMT. Thankfully, I was on the right path and continued merrily along my way.  

The climb to Nevada Falls was pretty steady. I had to take my time and eat some snacks to keep up my energy (Crap! I didn't eat breakfast!). I met a man and his two sons on the trail and we had some great conversation. We hiked together for about 30 minutes and then parted ways when I took a break. 

I started nearing Nevada Falls. It was quite beautiful. 

(Half Dome is to the left in this picture)

(The path leading to the falls.)

(The River that feeds the falls.)

(Looking back at the bridge you walk over to cross the falls.)

After the falls, the trail meets up with the Mist Trail. Here, I met Jessica and Jason. They were coming up from the Mist Trailhead with large packs on. More JMTers!!! We talked for a minute and then they went ahead of me. We met up later at Little Yosemite Valley and had lunch together. Turns out they were honeymooning! How cool! After lunch we parted ways. Their schedule was similar to mine, so I knew we would be crossing paths here and there. 

Another sign... I have about 6 miles left for the day. 

As I was going along, I noticed that there wasn't much water around and I was getting low. I finally found a creek and was able to fill up. It had beautiful flowers all along it's banks. 

Another guy was there filling up as well and he invited me over to join his group and some other guys who were just hanging out. I politely declined, as I wanted to continue my journey, but I soon realized that the trail did this weird thing and I wasn't sure which direction I was to go. So I went back to ask them if they knew, which they did, but I ended up hanging out with them anyway. 

There were 2 groups: 3 guys and a girl made up the first. They were all REI employees. Then there was a father/son unit (Keith and Dan "the ant"). We all hung out and talked for quite some time. One of the REI employees was sick and needed to rest. Thankfully he was much better by the end of our break. In our conversation there was much talk of gear and shoes and the such. Of course. They were quite impressed with my water filtration system and my trowel. It was really fun to share ideas and tips. 

The REI group packed up and headed back down to the valley, which is where I had just come from. Keith and Dan were headed to Tuolomne Meadows, which is where I would be on day 3. So, I joined them for the rest of the evening. It was great to have company. Turns out Keith is from Philly and Dan is stationed in SD with the Coast Guard. Again, small world. 

Here are a few pictures of our hike from our resting spot to our campsite.

(I loved the purple flowers that lined the trail here.)

(There's Dan waiting for us.)

(Beautiful views from where we were!)

It was starting to get late and I knew that we still had a few miles to go before we found our campsite, so we kept trekking along. We passed a girl named Kristen. She was also hiking the JMT solo. I was excited as I figured she and I could hike together once I parted ways with Keith and Dan. She invited us to camp with her, but we wanted to go up the trail some more. 

We found a spot where three other girls were and asked to join them. I called them The Trio. I only remember Martha's name. I think one might have been Maggie. 

Sunrise Creek ran along the backside of the camp, so we had easy access to water. We all set up our tents and I had a good laugh because Keith and Dan both had MSR tents too, so we had a little MSR tent village. While we were setting up, we spotted a deer. It just came into our camp and walked around for a bit before taking off. Once camp was set up, I started a fire for the group and we all started to make our dinners. I also had reception, so I was able to call my dad and send out a few text messages. 

All of a sudden, I realized I wasn't feeling well. I got my food (white cheddar shells and cheese) and tried to eat it, but it made me nauseated. I put the spoon to my mouth, took one bite, and knew that is all I could stomach. I went straight to bed, leaving my pot of food at the fire with everyone else. After resting a bit, I felt good enough to go take care of the extra food and clean the pot, but I went right back to bed after that! Hopefully I'll feel better in the morning. 

 

 

Yosemite National Park - The day prior to the hike

Yosemite National Park has to be one of the most amazing places I have ever seen. It is beautiful, and I can definitely see why John Muir chose to bring President Teddy Rosevelt there in order to pitch the idea of starting the National Park system. If you have never visited, please put it on the list of places you should go before you die. And give yourself plenty of time to walk some of the trails (there are plenty that are not very challenging for those of you who aren't as excited about hiking as I am).

The first place we stopped was at Tuolomne Meadows. This was the place I would be stopping to eat and camp on day 3, so I was getting familiarized with the campground, store and restaurant. We also walked over to the Tuolomne River. 

After we left Tuolomne Meadows, we headed to our campground, but before we got there, we had to stop at the iconic Tunnel View stop. This is where you can get a great view of El Capitan and Half Dome. 

Once we left that, we headed up to Bridalveil Falls campground to set up camp, which was only about 5miles from the trailhead of which I was starting, Glacier Point. Then we headed back down into the valley to get my permit, eat dinner and walk around. 

When I walked up to the counter to get my permit, the ranger said that there was 1 permit left for the Happy Isle trail head. The Happy Isle trailhead is actually the place where most start the North Bound JMT hike. This would have been a great permit to have! 

Now remember, I was supposed to start at Glacier Point and already set up camp just 5 miles or so from that trailhead. That was about 45 minutes away from where the other trailhead was, which was also just a short walk from the permit station and the backpacker's campground. Dang! We should have got my permit first! Then we could have just stayed in the Valley. I started getting nervous, too,because starting at Happy Isle means a good climb up for the majority of that day's hike. If I start at Glacier Point, it is mostly downhill. I was mentally prepared to go downhill on my first day!!!! Not uphill! 

Oooooh, but to start at Happy Isle would mean doing the JMT from start to finish without missing any of the trail (I would have missed about 4 miles of the beginning of the trail by starting from Glacier Point). What to do? What to dooooo? 

Despite being mentally prepared to go downhill... Despite my stuff already being up by Glacier Point... I went ahead and took the Happy Isle permit. 

Ta da! 

(Yes, they spelled my name wrong.)

After I finally had my permit, we went to eat, stopped in at the visitor's center and Ansel Adams art gallery. Then we took a hike over to Yosemite Falls. It was a very low snow year and Cali has been in a drought, so the falls were not running very full at all. 

It was on this hike that I realized just how nervous I was. My anxiety was flaring something crazy. I was nearly shaking and I felt so nauseous. Tomorrow I would be starting my hike. Wow! 

It was time to move on and head back to camp. But instead of staying long, we drove up to Glacier Point and caught the end of the sunset and joined in on the stargazing class that a park ranger was giving. It was cool to learn about some of the constellations and see the Milky Way. 

With it nearing 11:00, and knowing I had a big day (3 weeks!) ahead of me, we went back to camp and called it a night. 

Tomorrow... 

Everything I had been waiting for and preparing for would be waiting for me when I woke up in the morning...

Sorry to leave you hanging

Hi everyone.

I'm really sorry to leave you all hanging as to what happened with my hike. It took me some time to muster the emotional strength to come back to the blog after getting off the trail.

See, I ended up turning around on Day 7 and going back to the last resupply point, Red's Meadow Resort, which was also an easy exit point. From there I hopped on a bus and then hitch hiked my way down to Mt. Whitney to retrieve my Jeep.

Why in the world would I do that? I spent months upon months preparing for this hike! I was so excited for a great summer in the Sierras. How could I just stop? How could I just turn around like that? It was an extremely difficult decision for me, but I knew it was the right one. There were a few key things that caused me to do an about face...

First, on the Saturday before I started my hike, I somehow twisted my bad knee (old soccer injury) and I couldn't even put pressure on it. My friend had to help me get back in the car and gave me a compression strap to put on it. I was so scared that I wasn't going to be able to hike and became so nervous about it not getting better or me hurting it more. By Sunday it was feeling a little better, though I could still feel some pain. Monday came. The first day of the hike! I was feeling ok actually. Most of the first day is all up hill. And it's pretty wicked. By the end of the day, I could feel some pressure in my knee when I was stepping up. I had hoped that a good night's rest would be helpful, and it was. At first. By the end of the 2nd day, I could still feel it. I would take Ibuprofen every night, but it just wasn't enough (Come to find out I should have been taking MORE than what I was). Day 5 was pretty much downhill and at the end of that day I was going to be able to eat a cheeseburger. I was soooo hungry (Of which I will explain more of in the next paragraph) and I pretty much booked it downhill. I did 18 miles in that day in just 9 hours. That includes stopping for water, snacks and lunch. That's pretty quick when you're carrying a 40lb pack on your back. By the time I got to Red's Meadow Resort, BOTH of my knees were bothering me. They never got any better and going uphill on Day 7, I started to get extremely nervous that I was going to run into big problems further down the trail once the terrain got more challenging. Unfortunately, the further down the trail you get, the harder it is to get off the trail if you run into trouble. My knees were one of the reasons I made the decision to bail.

When you hike at this level, you can burn 2,000-3,000 calories a day. That means you need to be eating at least that much or more calories a day. I had all of my meals planned out and my calories planned out so that I would not be hungry and would lose a little weight. The first day was going fine. I had a breakfast on the go packet and a nut packet for breakfast. I had part of a cliff bar for snack, pepperoni tortilla wraps for lunch with gatorade. I was drinking (I thought) plenty of water and my electrolytes. When I got to camp that night, I cooked my first meal: White cheddar Velveeta Shells and Cheese. I couldn't eat it. I was getting so nauseated just looking at it. Just smelling it. I put the spoon to my mouth and almost vomited. So I figured I was just exhausted from hiking 12 miles that day and went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, I was no better. It was a chore for me to eat anything, so I didn't. The people I was hiking with had some Goo packets (high calorie shots in a pouch) and gummy blocks. So I had a couple of those, which helped me get to our spot for lunch. By lunch time my appetite found me again, so I had some more pepperoni wraps. And when we got to camp that night, which had a camp store and resupply station, I had some cheetos, but that was about it. No dinner. The next day I ate breakfast and lunch, but again, no dinner. This repeated itself every day. I just was never hungry at night. I'm not good at force feeding myself. I never was. So I just didn't' eat. On any regular day, this wouldn't be a big deal. However, when you're burning so many calories, this is the worst thing you can do for yourself. So, needless to say, I was running VERY low on energy.

My lack of calories combined with dehydration caused me to almost pass out on the trail on day 7. I had been drinking and drinking and drinking. My water reservoir and bottle were always filled. Yet, I couldn't keep hydrated. I was only urinating once in the morning and once at night. I don't know why. I really thought I was drinking more than enough water.

When I got lightheaded on the trail, I knew in my heart that I needed to turn around. So, I did. It was such a hard decision. I cried for a long time hiking back. But I knew it was the right decision for me.

I plan on going back next year to hike it with Donny and his group. Hiking solo is ok. You meet people to hike with and camp with, so it's not scary. But it can still be lonely. I should have been more social with the people I hiked with when we got to camp, but I was usually too exhausted to hang out around the campfire and talk, so I just went to my tent to journal and go to sleep. I think hiking with people that I already know and am close with will be much better for me. We'll see... I'm excited to be planning JMT 2015!

I am going to go through all of my pictures and my journal and make a post for each day that I was out there. I met some great people and saw some amazing things. Check back soon for more updates!

Hike on!