A few years ago, I hiked the John Muir Trail from Happy Isles in Yosemite to Kearsarge Pass, a distance of around 180 miles. We had some weather which came through, including snow which made the passes a little sketchy. We decided to come off the trail at Kearsarge with the intention of returning at a future date. With the completion of the TRT, that time is now.

Tomorrow morning, we will leave Lone Pine and head up Kearsarge to recommence our JMT hike. The weather forecast is looking good with only limited chances of thunderstorms. There were some nasty looking clouds over Mt Whitney this afternoon but we understand it will be clear the next few days so we have a good weather window.

Today was a day of preparations for hitting the trail tomorrow. First up, we had to go to the Lone Pine Ranger Station to organise our permits for entry to Kearsarge Pass and exit on Whitney. To cut a long story short, we originally had a permit for our entry via Kearsarge for today. However, we felt we needed a zero in Tahoe City so were effectively behind a day.

There are a limited number of walk in permits for Whitney, around 25 in our case per day. You have to arrive at 11 AM and randomly get assigned a number. In our case, this was the number 8. This means 7 groups get to go before you and, if all the permits are gone by the time you get there, then you’re out of luck and won’t be going anywhere.

It was a bit like waiting for our exam results as we nervously waited to be called. We dealt with Ranger Andy and, fortunately, there were still permits available for us. He was great and understood our situation with having flown from Australia to do this hike, although he was obviously limited by the system. Formalities out of the way, we were permitted for our hike tomorrow.

We then headed back to Lone Pine and got our resupply done. Then, we headed north to Bishop, around a 60 mile drive away. We had to get a few bits of gear from the outdoors shop and we also wanted to go to the movies.

We had a bit of time when we arrived and so headed to the local bar for a drink. They had a pool table so, of course, I had to soundly thrash Ben over the course of two games.

At the movies, we ended up seeing Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Unlike last time,we managed to enter the correct cinema for the movie we had paid for. We both agreed it was great and better than the first movie.

It was then time for the drive back to Lone Pine and to get packed for what should be an eventful day tomorrow. I may not have signal for the next four days so will most likely next update after we have summited Whitney. Wish us luck!