120 miles backpacking on the John Muir Trail - a photo essay

Instead of the whole JMT, we hiked 11 days and 10 nights from the South Lake trailhead near Bishop, CA to the Whitney Portal trailhead at the southern end of the trail. We guesstimate it was 120 miles. Our goal was to see sunrise on Mt. Whitney on the last day of the hike.

Day 1 - packing up at the car, carrying everything we need for 11 days:

And we're off!

Day 2 - we caught lots of little fish, but no big ones:

Big mountains - this section of the JMT goes over 7 mountain passes:

Day 3 - Another fishing break:

Success!

Day 4 - random rope bridge:

Day 5 - spent a rest day here - that's Fin Dome:

And that's Fin Dome at sunset:

Day 6 - next mountain pass:

And down the other side:

Day 8 - trying to catch a big one with fake frog bait:

Day 10 - last night camping at Guitar Lake:

Day 11 - up at 3 AM to hike the final 3,000 ft to the summit of Mt. Whitney:

We made it! 14,495 ft on the summit of Mt. Whitney:

The long hike down from Mt. Whitney - there's a restaurant at the bottom on SR 395, and all I have left is half of a Cliff Bar!

Cheers to a great trip!

Want to see more of my trips? Let me know in the comments :-)