By Michael Lanza
Are you planning to thru-hike the John Muir Trail? “America’s Most Beautiful Trail” should be on every serious backpacker’s tick list. After hiking it in a blazing (and slightly crazy) seven days, I became convinced that—while that was quite hard—the traditional itinerary of spreading the roughly 221 miles (including more than 10 miles descending Mount Whitney that’s not part of the JMT) over about three weeks has a serious flaw: With limited food-resupply options, you’ll carry a monster pack that may not only make you sore and uncomfortable, it could cause injuries that cut short your trip.
As I write in my blog story “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” thousands of miles of backpacking over more than three decades—including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—have taught me that the single best step I can take to make all trips more enjoyable is simple: lightening my pack weight.
Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.
David Ports and Marco Garofalo hiking the John Muir Trail past Evolution Lake in the Evolution Basin, Kings Canyon N.P.
In this article, I lay out a smart, complete, and proven ultralight strategy for thru-hiking the JMT in 10 to 11 days—and why you’d want to do it—plus, for anyone not able to average over 20 miles a day, a suggested two-week JMT thru-hike. While much of this story is free for anyone to read, reading the entire story, including specific tips that are based on my experience, is an exclusive benefit of a paid subscription to The Big Outside.
The John Muir Trail—definitely one of America’s 10 best backpacking trips—is ideal for going ultralight because of its generally dry summers, well-constructed footpath, and moderate grades. Backpackers who arrive with their legs in trail shape can knock off 20 to 22 miles a day—spending about 10 hours a day on the trail (including breaks) and averaging 2.5 mph, a reasonable pace for someone who’s fit and carrying a light pack.
Want to hike the John Muir Trail?
The eastern Sallie Keyes Lake on the John Muir Trail in the John Muir Wilderness, High Sierra.
See my stories “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” “The Best Backpacking Gear for the John Muir Trail,” and “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.”
See also my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your JMT thru-hike or section hike or any trip you read about at The Big Outside, plus my expert e-books to backpacking trips in Yosemite and other parks.
Please share your thoughts on my tips below, or your own tricks, in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.
. Join now!
Marco Garofalo backpacking the John Muir Trail above Helen Lake in Kings Canyon N.P. Click photo to read about my most recent, long JMT section hike.
Permit Get a permit for the entire JMT from the park or forest where you plan to start, either Yosemite National Park or Whitney Portal on the Mount Whitney Trail in the Inyo National Forest. JMT permits are in very high demand for dates in July, August, and September.
To hike the JMT southbound, apply for a permit from Yosemite National Park at recreation.gov up to 24 weeks in advance of the date you want to start hiking, entering a lottery for a permit within a specific window of dates.
Permits for hiking northbound, starting at Whitney Portal on the Mount Whitney Trail, are reserved through a lottery system at recreation.gov, conducted in February.
See “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit.”
Mark Fenton at Trail Crest on the John Muir Trail on Mount Whitney in Sequoia National Park. Click photo to learn how I can help you plan a JMT thru-hike.
Mark Fenton backpacking the John Muir Trail hiking toward Silver Pass in the John Muir Wilderness. Click photo to learn how I can help you plan this trip.
It’s not for everyone, of course. Many hikers allot three weeks, a pace of about 10 miles a day. Maybe the smartest strategy for you would be something in between—say, 16 days averaging about 14 miles per day. (I can help you plan that itinerary. Click here to learn more.) Experiment with backpacking longer days and traveling light on shorter trips before your JMT thru-hike.
Still, traditional backpackers can draw benefits from adopting strategies employed by fastpackers—including hiking southbound on the JMT. Besides giving you time to acclimate to the higher elevations of the southern Sierra, it gives you two resupply opportunities in the northern half (Tuolumne Meadows and Red’s Meadow) to keep your pack lighter while building up your trail legs. And it gives you half the trip—prior to reaching the last resupply opp, Muir Trail Ranch—to gauge your food needs and daily mileage capabilities.
By that time, you may find you’re walking farther every day than you anticipated and possibly eating (slightly) less than planned. Both realizations are common among people doing their first long trail. Backpackers are as likely to overestimate food as underestimate it.
Plus, except for the high passes, the JMT is not, step for step, as difficult as hiking in other parts of the country. Give serious thought to food supply and daily mileage, because leaving Muir Trail Ranch with 10 or 11 days worth of food will add about 20 pounds to your pack as you head for the JMT’s highest passes.
Todd Arndt passing Wanda Lake on the John Muir Trail in Kings Canyon National Park.
You might even plan to hike shorter days for the trail’s northern half, as you’re getting stronger as well as to linger in places, but by the time you reach Muir Trail Ranch, be ready for longer days in order to reduce your pack’s food weight for the southern half of the JMT.
And that, really, is the whole point. Carrying too much weight on your back only makes a trip more difficult—and can make it miserable. You spend too much time thinking about when you can take a break from carrying your pack instead of thinking about where you are. That’s not why you’re out there.
Discard any misguided notion that you’ll “miss too much” by hiking bigger days—you’re still walking, after all, and only incrementally faster than you would walk with a heavier pack. You’re just walking for more hours each day—and more comfortably.
Plan your next great backpacking adventure in Yosemite
Marie Lake along the John Muir Trail in the John Muir Wilderness, High Sierra.
Let’s face it: The real reason you’d hike slower with a heavier pack is that it’s crushing weight is slowing you down—not because walking at that pace somehow gives you a higher-quality experience. It’s actually usually quite the opposite.
See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside and my Custom Trip Planning page for details on how I can help make your JMT hike exponentially better by giving you personally customized trip planning.
Find more advice about planning a JMT thru-hike in my story about our seven-day thru-hike, which has more photos and a video, plus tips on planning it, and this menu of stories offering expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.
Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my stories “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips” and “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” and the lightweight backpacking guide without having a paid membership.
Are you planning to thru-hike the John Muir Trail? “America’s Most Beautiful Trail” should be on every serious backpacker’s tick list. After hiking it in a blazing (and slightly crazy) seven days, I became convinced that—while that was quite hard—the traditional itinerary of spreading the roughly 221 miles (including more than 10 miles descending Mount Whitney that’s not part of the JMT) over about three weeks has a serious flaw: With limited food-resupply options, you’ll carry a monster pack that may not only make you sore and uncomfortable, it could cause injuries that cut short your trip.
As I write in my blog story “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” thousands of miles of backpacking over more than three decades—including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—have taught me that the single best step I can take to make all trips more enjoyable is simple: lightening my pack weight.
David Ports and Marco Garofalo hiking the John Muir Trail past Evolution Lake in the Evolution Basin, Kings Canyon N.P.
In this article, I lay out a smart, complete, and proven ultralight strategy for thru-hiking the JMT in 10 to 11 days—and why you’d want to do it—plus, for anyone not able to average over 20 miles a day, a suggested two-week JMT thru-hike. While much of this story is free for anyone to read, reading the entire story, including specific tips that are based on my experience, is an exclusive benefit of a paid subscription to The Big Outside.
The John Muir Trail—definitely one of America’s 10 best backpacking trips—is ideal for going ultralight because of its generally dry summers, well-constructed footpath, and moderate grades. Backpackers who arrive with their legs in trail shape can knock off 20 to 22 miles a day—spending about 10 hours a day on the trail (including breaks) and averaging 2.5 mph, a reasonable pace for someone who’s fit and carrying a light pack.
Want to hike the John Muir Trail?
Click here for my expert, detailed advice customized for your trip.
The eastern Sallie Keyes Lake on the John Muir Trail in the John Muir Wilderness, High Sierra.
See my stories “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” “The Best Backpacking Gear for the John Muir Trail,” and “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.”
See also my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your JMT thru-hike or section hike or any trip you read about at The Big Outside, plus my expert e-books to backpacking trips in Yosemite and other parks.
Please share your thoughts on my tips below, or your own tricks, in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.
Read all of this story and get full access to all John Muir Trail stories
and ALL stories at The Big Outside, plus get a FREE e-book
. Join now! and ALL stories at The Big Outside, plus get a FREE e-book
Marco Garofalo backpacking the John Muir Trail above Helen Lake in Kings Canyon N.P. Click photo to read about my most recent, long JMT section hike.
Permit Get a permit for the entire JMT from the park or forest where you plan to start, either Yosemite National Park or Whitney Portal on the Mount Whitney Trail in the Inyo National Forest. JMT permits are in very high demand for dates in July, August, and September.
To hike the JMT southbound, apply for a permit from Yosemite National Park at recreation.gov up to 24 weeks in advance of the date you want to start hiking, entering a lottery for a permit within a specific window of dates.
Permits for hiking northbound, starting at Whitney Portal on the Mount Whitney Trail, are reserved through a lottery system at recreation.gov, conducted in February.
See “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit.”
See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”
Mark Fenton at Trail Crest on the John Muir Trail on Mount Whitney in Sequoia National Park. Click photo to learn how I can help you plan a JMT thru-hike.
Get the right backpack and tent for a hike like the JMT.
See the best ultralight backpacks and ultralight backpacking tents.
See the best ultralight backpacks and ultralight backpacking tents.
Mark Fenton backpacking the John Muir Trail hiking toward Silver Pass in the John Muir Wilderness. Click photo to learn how I can help you plan this trip.
Not Down With 20-mile Days?
It’s not for everyone, of course. Many hikers allot three weeks, a pace of about 10 miles a day. Maybe the smartest strategy for you would be something in between—say, 16 days averaging about 14 miles per day. (I can help you plan that itinerary. Click here to learn more.) Experiment with backpacking longer days and traveling light on shorter trips before your JMT thru-hike.
Still, traditional backpackers can draw benefits from adopting strategies employed by fastpackers—including hiking southbound on the JMT. Besides giving you time to acclimate to the higher elevations of the southern Sierra, it gives you two resupply opportunities in the northern half (Tuolumne Meadows and Red’s Meadow) to keep your pack lighter while building up your trail legs. And it gives you half the trip—prior to reaching the last resupply opp, Muir Trail Ranch—to gauge your food needs and daily mileage capabilities.
By that time, you may find you’re walking farther every day than you anticipated and possibly eating (slightly) less than planned. Both realizations are common among people doing their first long trail. Backpackers are as likely to overestimate food as underestimate it.
Plus, except for the high passes, the JMT is not, step for step, as difficult as hiking in other parts of the country. Give serious thought to food supply and daily mileage, because leaving Muir Trail Ranch with 10 or 11 days worth of food will add about 20 pounds to your pack as you head for the JMT’s highest passes.
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Todd Arndt passing Wanda Lake on the John Muir Trail in Kings Canyon National Park.
You might even plan to hike shorter days for the trail’s northern half, as you’re getting stronger as well as to linger in places, but by the time you reach Muir Trail Ranch, be ready for longer days in order to reduce your pack’s food weight for the southern half of the JMT.
And that, really, is the whole point. Carrying too much weight on your back only makes a trip more difficult—and can make it miserable. You spend too much time thinking about when you can take a break from carrying your pack instead of thinking about where you are. That’s not why you’re out there.
Discard any misguided notion that you’ll “miss too much” by hiking bigger days—you’re still walking, after all, and only incrementally faster than you would walk with a heavier pack. You’re just walking for more hours each day—and more comfortably.
Plan your next great backpacking adventure in Yosemite
and other flagship parks using my expert e-books.
Marie Lake along the John Muir Trail in the John Muir Wilderness, High Sierra.
Let’s face it: The real reason you’d hike slower with a heavier pack is that it’s crushing weight is slowing you down—not because walking at that pace somehow gives you a higher-quality experience. It’s actually usually quite the opposite.
See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside and my Custom Trip Planning page for details on how I can help make your JMT hike exponentially better by giving you personally customized trip planning.
Find more advice about planning a JMT thru-hike in my story about our seven-day thru-hike, which has more photos and a video, plus tips on planning it, and this menu of stories offering expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.
Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my stories “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips” and “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” and the lightweight backpacking guide without having a paid membership.
Use The Big Outside to plan your next adventure.
Join now and a get free e-book!
Join now and a get free e-book!