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And then there's just you and the mountains

By Carl Heintze

Everyone has unfulfilled ambitions.

I've got a lot of them. Some I've shed without regret, but there's one that sticks with me. I know I'll never do it. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. But I'd love to.

My unfulfilled ambition: to hike the entire length of the John Muir Trail.

The John Muir Trail, should you not know, runs from Yosemite National Park--actually from Happy Isles--to Whitney Portal, high on the slope of Mt. Whitney, 210 miles to the south. It starts at about 4,400 feet above sea level and ends up at about twice that altitude. But in between these two points, it goes up and down frequently, the highest up some 13,000 feet at Whitney Crest and the low point probably its beginning.

Walking the John Muir Trail takes a healthy person about three weeks (and presumably most of its hikers are young, healthy persons). Usually one walks it during the height of summer because snow blocks the passes during the other half of the year. At least one person has made it during the dead of winter, although I wouldn't advise it.

Most folks do it once and let it go at that, but I have a friend who's done it twice. He so enjoyed the first time, he did it all over again a couple of years later, so he tells me.

Although it might be possible to make it with a mule, most folks carry all their gear on their backs. Since there's a limit to what one person can carry, it's not possible to make the whole distance without resupplying, usually at least three times, sometimes more often.

There are no stores on the trail, anyway. In fact, once a hiker starts, he or she is pretty much out of touch with civilization for the rest of the trip. That's because the trail traverses one of the longest ranges of uncrossed mountains in the United States. Tioga Pass in Yosemite is the road nearest the trail's northern end. Walker Pass in the south is the next place where pavement crosses the trail.

So doing the whole length of the trail is a challenge as large as hiking the Appalachian Trail, which stretches along the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. The Appalachian Trail is lower and longer, but, at least in my view, not as beautiful.

I am proud to say I have walked part of the John Muir Trail, from Happy Isles to Red's Meadows, west of Mammoth, a distance of about 60 miles. It took about 10 days, which means we averaged about six miles a day--no record, but then we weren't out to set records, just to enjoy it.

Along this length, I occasionally thought I would die; I was wildly exhilarated in what I can only describe as a kind of religious experience; I saw many beautiful mountains and lakes; I was immensely tired and immensely happy.

I also met a lot of people--a retired Berkeley fire captain and his wife who were doing it together, a young man with a big bag of rice and not much else who was doing it alone, two girls who had lost all their food to bears and were going back for more. A mother bear and her cubs also managed to make off with some of our food.

I count this hike along the John Muir Trail as one of the signal accomplishments of my life. I wanted to go the whole distance. Now I know I never shall.

But that's okay. I can dream about it.

I don't know why it is so exhilarating to walk the trail. Certainly it flies in the face of reason. But I think it is a little like riding a motorcycle. You're headed into the wind, you seem a part of the atmosphere. You're moving, moving; there's just you and the mountains. You're in a mystical communion with the world, stripped of its civilized refinements.

Or at least I was. There are, of course, many who think this is all insanity. Why should one go out into the mountains, sleep on the ground and get sweaty and winded and weary when there's no necessity to do so?

I've thought about that.

There's probably no way to explain to a nonbackpacker why it is so satisfying to suffer the indignities, discomforts and weariness.

But somehow it gives one a sense of righteousness, of having tested oneself against the elements and won. There's you and the mountains, both figuratively stripped to the essentials.

Most of our lives aren't like that. Instead, our being is overladen with too much comfort.

Stripped down to the clothes on one's back and the food one can carry, life becomes more elemental, even if it's only for a short time. Though I must admit, one of the greatest things at the end was a hot shower.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 24, 1998.
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