John Muir Trail
The Essential Guide to Hiking America's Most Famous Trail
This authoritative guide for hikers and backpackers describes the 220-mile John Muir Trail, from Yosemite Valley to the summit of Mount Whitney.
Stretching 220 miles from Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney and onward to Whitney Portal, California’s famed John Muir Trail (JMT) is one of the most popular backpacking routes in the US. It passes through some of the most dramatic scenery in the country: massive granite peaks, dizzying waterfalls, pristine alpine lakes, and vibrant meadows filled with Sierra wildflowers. Plus, it offers the mildest, sunniest climate of any major mountain range in the world
The John Muir Trail contains the information you need for hiking or backpacking the route. The comprehensive guide describes the entire passage, with detailed directions as well as UTM coordinates for important junctions, lateral trails, campsites, food-storage boxes, and other points of interest. The book divides the trail into 13 sections, and each section includes an elevation profile and a table that lists elevation, distance from the previous point, and total mileage.
Inside you’ll find
- Detailed description of the entire trail from an expert author
- Trail junction locations and distances between junctions
- Comprehensive table of campsites
- 17 topographic maps plus elevation profiles
- Side trips to 15 notable peaks
- Pre-trip planning information about food resupplies, gear, permits, and more
Whether you’re hiking the entire JMT or just sections of it, you’ll find expert start-to-finish advice in the updated edition of this guidebook!
From childhood, Elizabeth “Lizzy” Wenk has hiked and climbed in the Sierra Nevada with her family. Since she started college, she has found excuses to spend every summer in the Sierra, with its beguiling landscape, abundant flowers, and near-perfect weather.
One interest lies in biological research, and she worked first as a research assistant for others and then completed her own PhD thesis research on the effects of rock type on alpine plant distribution and physiology. However, much of the time, she hikes simply for leisure. Obsessively wanting to explore every bit of the Sierra, she has hiked thousands of on- and off-trail miles and climbed more than 600 peaks in the mountain range. Many of her wanderings are now directed to gather data for several Wilderness Press titles and to introduce her two young daughters to the wonders of the mountains. For them as well, the Sierra, and especially Yosemite, has become a favorite location.
Although she will forever consider Bishop, California, home, Lizzy is currently living in Sydney, Australia, with her husband, Douglas, and daughters, Eleanor and Sophia. There she is working as a research fellow at Macquarie University and enjoying Australia’s exquisite eucalyptus forests, vegetated slot canyons, and wonderful birdlife—except during the Northern Hemisphere summer, which she continues to spend exploring the Sierra.
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