So, next year (if plans allow, and later if they do not) I plan to make a self-supported speed hike of the John Muir Trail. My post back in the beginning of January has the beginnings of all this, and the trip last month gives me a sense of the terrain, and what I’ll need in order to make my current plan happen.

This is the plan:

-3 days and change, 55-60 miles a day.
-~18 hours a day on the move (with little to no sleep on night three).
-3.3 mph moving average required (doable based on my C2m splits).
-South to north.
-Resupply at Red Meadows on the afternoon of day 3, and at Tuolumne the next morning. Lighter pack at the end = good.

Day 1: Whitney Portal (0400) to Twin Lakes (2200), 57.5 miles
Day 2: Twin Lakes (0400) to Upper Bear Creek Meadows (2200), 57.6 miles
Day 3: UBCM (0400) to Shadow Creek Junction, 60.3 miles (Red Meadows resupply @ 40.3)
Day 4: Shadow Creek (no sleep, coffee!) to Yosemite (1300), 51.3 miles (Tuo. Meadows @ 29.6, breakfast!)

That’s 226.7 miles in 81 hours, or 3 days and 9 hours.

Which is probably crazy optimistic. The supported record is Sue’s from last fall: 3 days and 20 hours. The unsupported record, Mike Popov’s, is 4 days and 5 hours. So why should I be able to do this faster?

Sue made very few mistakes, by my reading. She didn’t use poles, and her speed suffered on the steeper terrain on days 2 and 3. She also took a 30 minute shower at Red Meadow! On the other hand, her final day from there to the valley was damn fast. Efficiency is the question here.

Popov, on the other hand, made loads of errors in my view. He started (@ the summit, we should note with his time) dehydrated, and didn’t eat enough, creating a big hole on day one I don’t think he ever fully got out of. He waited until he was dead to sleep, and then often poorly, rather than being proactive. He also went fully unsupported, carrying a stove and all his food. Given that the JMT goes right by stores in the end, this seems to me a bit artificial.

So, my goal will be sub 4 days. It can I think be done substantially faster. Will that be me? Can’t say, yet. I think the project plays to my strengths, the pacing goals in particular will depend 80% on uphill speed. As I think the attempts in the past years have shown, planning and discipline is also crucial. The last part, as 66 year old JMT hardman Reinhold Metzger has said of the three attributes, is being stubborn and tough minded, working through the pain. I’m getting better at that.

Future projects always proliferate.