Christy Teglo - Weathered: Finding Strength on the John Muir Trail

Weathered: Finding Strength on the John Muir Trail

Copyright 2021 Christy Teglo

Published by Perspective Through Adventure Publishing

All rights reserved. This book may not be produced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-7375900-1-9 (ebook)

Editor: Sandra Childress

Cover design, publishing logo, and map illustration created by Ian Bright ( www.BrightRoseBooks. com )

Interior design: Susan Gerber

Dedicated to the friends and family who believed in me, even when I didnt

Contents

Day 5:

Day 9:

Day 10:

What is the JMT?

It was February 2016 when a coworker, Barry, told me about the John Muir Trail, or JMT. We were talking about vacations that we wanted to take that year. He said the JMT was a trail that covered more than 200 miles in the California High Sierra mountains that started in Yosemite Valley and finished at Mount Whitney.

I had not heard of Mount Whitney. I asked, Mount Whitney? Tell me more about the trail. Barry explained, Mount Whitney is the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. The JMT is 211 miles (plus another 11 miles coming down from Whitney). The whole trail is at high elevation, and Whitney is at 14,500 feet. The trail goes over ten mountain passes. Its a no - joke trail.

Barry showed me pictures of the trail online, and it looked amazing. He also explained that he tried to hike 200 miles on the east coast with a friend after graduating from college a couple of years ago and only made it 100 miles. They had to bail because it rained so much and his friend was miserable.

I went back to my desk and thought, that sounds fun, challenging, and beautiful . Within a week, I was looking at the trail online, and the pictures were breathtaking.

With the exception of the first seven miles, the trail doesnt drop below 7,000 feet and much of the trail is over 10,000 feet. The total amount of elevation gain is 47,000 feet and the total amount of descent is 38,000 feet. For comparison, Mount Everest is 29,029 feet from sea level to the peak.

I researched the permit process on the Yosemite website and found it very intimidating. There is a 97% rejection rate for permits. Over the previous five years, there had been a 400% increase in requests for permits. The movie Wild contributed to this increase because the JMT and Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) are the same trail for 150 miles.

I watched Wild in the fall of 2015 and was amazed. I had never heard of long-distance thru-hikes and had really never hiked before. Sure, as a kid, we did small hikes, but nothing more than a couple of miles. Long-distance hiking was in a league of its own.

I was born in St. Louis and lived there until I was nine. Then we moved to Florence, Colorado, where we lived briefly before moving to Canon City, Colorado. We lived there until I was 13 and then moved back to St. Louis. My mom was from Colorado, and both of my parents went to college there.

You wouldnt think it with my dad being an accountant, but he is very outdoorsy. While living in Colorado, we camped in tents, went rafting, and took the ski lifts up Pikes Peak during the summer and mountain biked down. We never skied because we didnt have the money for it. But we enjoyed a lot of the outdoors, even though we were always underprepared.

For example, my dad decided to go rafting down the Arkansas River, which had large rapids, in a pool raft. For some reason, he thought it would be fine for me, my sister, and her friend to raft the 12 or so miles from Canon City to Florence.

The three of us girls (aged 1011) each had our own inner tube, and my dad was in a pool raft. We were all tied together with some rope. We almost died many times, including when we hit a huge dam and were close to getting sucked into it. My sisters friend climbed the rocks to the top of the cliff hoping we could all go around the dam, but there was a prison fence there. I was scarred for months after that trip and vowed to pop the inner tubes if they ever tried to go again. They all loved it, while I was terrified.

I am not exactly a daredevil, but I love adventures, and I love challenging myself. Ive completed four half-marathons even though I hate running. Its a love-hate relationship, really. I love the way I feel when its over. However, not breathing well and being in pain is not exactly fun. But it is super fulfilling when you see what you accomplished at the end.

After seeing the movie Wild , I was in awe that Cheryl Strayed did not have hiking experience and still completed the Pacific Crest Trail, or PCT. The PCT stretches from Mexico to Canada and is over 2,600 miles. I loved the movie and the endurance she had.

But I had no interest in hiking through the desert and struggling for water. I drink over 100 ounces of water in my everyday life and couldnt imagine being out there with little water, sweating away what water I did have.

During the Pacific Northwest section, it rains a lot. Hiking and camping in the rain also did not sound appealing. To top it off, that trail takes about six months to complete. Working full-time, I knew there was no way I could get that time off.

When Barry told me about the JMT a few months after I saw Wild, I thought, Th is is doable. Water is plenty, the temperatures are bearable, there is little rain, and I could complete it in three weeks . I received three weeks of vacation a year and figured I could save all of my time off. The JMT seemed like a reasonable trail.

I decided to apply for a permit. To get one, you must fax, yes, fax in a request with your top three choices for entry. You also have to request the permit six months in advance. They only allow ten passes from each trailhead per day.

It took me days to figure out this process. I read lots of blogs and bought a book called Plan & Go, Th e John Muir Trail , by Gerret Kalkoffen. It helped tremendously, but the process made me want to pull my hair out. I understand now why people just give up on getting a permit. Youll often hear, The hardest part of the JMT is getting a permit.

I used a website to send in a fax each day. My top three choices were in the Yosemite Valley area (Happy Isles, Little Yosemite Valley, and Glacier Point). When you get a rejection, they send an email letting you know you were not chosen in the lottery. Its very disheartening to get those emails.

After a week of rejections, I decided to tell Barry I was applying for a permit. You see, Barry was 25, fit, adventurous, and was used to thru-hiking and more extreme sports like mountain biking.

I was 36, about to have surgery for two parathyroid tumors, fit but overweight, and sort of a scaredy-cat. We went to lunch one day, and he mentioned something about wanting to do the JMT. I said, Permits are hard to get, and you have to get it six months in advance.