JMT Day 1 / August 31, 2010 - Yosemite Valley to Sunrise

stats: 13 miles, 5320' gain

Time to finally start hiking! We got up at 6am and were all packed by 6:45. We walked over to Curry Village, the restaurant/store hub in Yosemite Valley and had our final ‘real’ cups of coffee and pastries then it was off to the trailhead. Becky wanted to walk the mile and a half to the trailhead, but fortunately a shuttle bus stopped right next to us, so we hopped onboard and got a quick lift to the end of the road.
We got our picture taken at the trailhead sign that lists the mileage to all the major landmarks, the last line of the sign reads ‘Mt.Whitney summit, 211 miles’….guess we have our work cut out for us.
The trail past all the various waterfalls went a bit slower than last year as we were now loaded down with overnight gear and our first week’s supply of food, but the weather was sunny and pleasantly cool.
Originally, we were unable to get a permit to start from the traditional beginning of the JMT in the valley bottom, the Happy Isles trailhead, and we could only get a permit to start from Glacier Point, but there were enough first-come first-served permits the day before that we were able to switch things around and start from Happy Isles. The good thing was that we could then hike the full JMT, start early in the morning, and save $25 each for bus ride up to Glacier Point…the only bad thing was starting from the valley bottom added 3200’ of climbing to our first days travel.
The Happy Isles trailhead is also the starting point for day hikers heading to Half Dome, probably the most popular big hike in the park, and we shared the trail with a sea of humanity until we reached the Half Dome turn-off….from there on out, we largely had the trail to ourselves.
By late afternoon we were grinding up the last of the 5300’ of climbing and our pace had certainly slowed as our lungs weren’t quite used to hiking at 9500ft just yet, but we reached our first camp, Sunrise, at 3:30pm and spent the afternoon doing lots of stretching and rehydrating. The backpackers camping area at Sunrise was pretty full by evening and some stragglers were still rolling in after dark.
There were lots of friendly backpackers staying at Sunrise, a big group of folks from Colorado, some well into their mid-70’s…it was a kick to see folks of their age still hefting packs and running around in the alpine.
Sunrise has seasonal tent-cabins and provides catered meals for those with big budgets… we tried not to think about the fancy food others were eating nearby as the cook rang the dinner bell and we ate our simple one-pot meal.
Off to bed early and looking forward to our next day of hiking.

Day 2...
Link to the photo album

Becky and I at the Happy Isles trailhead...the last time we'll be clean for a while

Leaving Half Dome behind on the way to Sunrise