Rain protection on JMT?

No rain gear or shelter? Seems silly not to carry something you can make an emergency shelter from. A small piece of silnylon or even polychro would keep you dry in a pinch if you insist on sitting up all night for the sake of a couple of ounces. You can have a small tarp for 4oz or so. There are much better ways to cut weight IMO, and I would never consider going into the backcountry on a multi-day walk without *some* form of backup shelter, however meagre. I don't know the Sierra though… the trees where I live wouldn't stop me from getting wet during the night. Are yours rainproof?

Kind of a Sierra specific question :)

I have spent July/August in the High Sierra/JMT area for the last 8 years, one summer, it rained 8 out of 9 days.

For 7 oz, you can have rain protection (AGG silnylon jacket, ULA Rain Wrap), and for another 1 oz, you can have a cuben fiber pack cover from zpacks.com. If you want something breathable, use a driducks jacket (about 2 oz more). These items also provide extra warmth (it can get down to 28 degrees in the high mountains there) during the night.

I've had 4 separate week long climbing trips to the Toloumne area in August over the past 10 years, and its rained enough on every trip except the first one that a hiker would be seriously uncomfortable without rain protection and at least a minimal shelter.

The worst is when a spent hurricane spins up out of the gulf and heads west. It doesn't happen often, but when it does you will wish you had a shelter because it can cause a lot more rain than you would expect in the Sierra.

I was on the JMT for 15 days in August 2005. It rained some on about half the days. My last day on the trail there was heavy rain all night and continuing the next morning. Trail journal entry here http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=121497

Plan on it raining .

If it doesn't.. You've enjoyed great weather . and have not had to deal with packing . and upacking wet stuff.

When the clouds start rolling in .. You don't have to start kicking yourself . for being so " oz. wise . pound foolish"

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I second the rest of the opinions. Weather is generally dry and stable, but I've encountered two very serious storms in the past 25 years of Sierra hiking, which would have been life-threatening with no shelter. Remember that July & August are monsoon seasons just south of the Sierra, and if the high pressure system moves off its usual position you can get a multi-day serious monsoon storm coming up from the south.

Amy

I do my long trips almost exclusively in the Sierras. I would never have some sort of minimal rain protection. For me it is reasonable to take along Dri Ducks and a tarp. I have had heavy rains, light rains, hail, rain in the afternoon, rain during the night and of course no rain at all.

One way to be sure it is going to rain would be to take no rain protection.

i'd liken it to setting up a tent a few feet away from an active rifle range target

most likely, those shooting will hit the target and not you

but if you lose on the odds, you could die

i've been on several summer trips in the sierras that were bone dry the entire time. i've also had several trips with pretty heavy rains. i've had a couple trips with freezing temps, hail, torrential downpours that lasted several hours, etc. i've had snow. one trip the night time lows were around 20, in august, and it rained hard every afternoon for about 4 hours. at least a couple of those trips i'm pretty sure i'd be dead if i hadn't had rain gear.

is that a little kern golden in your avatar?

Most of the time I've encountered rain in the Sierra, it's been the afternoon rain shower kind. It peters out after a couple of hours and then by the time you camp it's generally dry. BUT I remember going over Pinchot Pass one time in a DRIVING hailstorm. A poncho sure is a good thing.

Almost 100% of my camps at night have been dry, but over the years I've had a couple of notable exceptions. One one Labor Day weekend it rained for two days straight. It would have been miserable without shelter.

The Sierra are a great place to experiment with a tarp shelter. You'll probably be able to camp multiple times before you actually get some rain so that you'll really have your technique down by the time you actually do get some rain.

If you don't bring shelter, you can do what John Muir used to do, dance all night. I'm actually serious as I mention this; it saved my life one time. I was out on a day hike and made some serious navigational errors (well, the person with the map did but whatever). I wound up having to spend an unplanned night out, and it rained hard. I had neither raingear nor shelter. I did jumping jacks all night long. If I stopped for a moment, as soon as I stopped, I would start shivering. Had I not done jumping jacks, I'm sure I would have had hypothermia.

The length of time it takes to hike the JMT (especially if you're taking your time) is too long for weather forecasts to be reliable. 1-2 nights w/o raingear, sure, maybe. You can predict from day to day if it will rain, but what good is that if you're a week into your trip, and days from a place you can abort it? If you get wet while looking for your tree to sit under, you're not going to dry out in the dark very fast, with that much moisture in the air. And then you're looking at hypothermia.

If you don't already have gear, a Golite Poncho Tarp weight 10oz and cost under $50 at Basegear when you use their ongoing 20% deal. 10oz and $50 seems a small inconvenience for avoiding hypothermia. I know it's judgmental to say so, but going out on a multi-week hike in the mountains w/o a basic piece of survival gear seems needlessly reckless.

"PS I'm not afraid of being uncomfortable."

Well there's your answer. If you would rather risk the 'discomfort' of doing jumping jacks and sit ups all night, instead of the 'discomfort' of carrying an extra few ounces of rain protection, then leave the poncho/tarp at home.

if you mean to hike the Muir Trail completely without rain gear, then you have to be ready to set up a tent anywhere you go.

With full rain gear (Gore text jackets, pants and ponchos) the below photo was taken on the JMT on July 12, 2008 – these two had blue lips and I was about as worried as you can be, even though I had hiked the JMT 7 times before this trip:

There were a lot of people who got into real trouble that day, plus, flash flooding washed out the Whitney Fish Hatchery near Independence, etc – these things happen, and this storm came up on us without any real warning. One thunder clap, then a few drops, 10 minuts later we had 1" hail coming down, and it didn't stop for hours. Within half an hour there were 6" of ice covering the entire are we were in. Again, this was on July 12….

Thanks for telling your experiences guys, though I think a few of you got insanely unlucky (which proves your point).

I've got gear, but will probably look into the MLD Poncho Tarp or the Gatewood Cape. BTW the Cape looks like it would fair better in the wind, whaddaya think?

To the above dude, thanks for reminding me of that storm. That thing was gnarly.

And the trout was found just a stone's throw from LA. Hooray for SoCal backcountry!

Thanks again y'all

Lynn,
That's a good way to phrase it. Just how uncomfortable would you be carrying even a pound worth of tarp plus rain jacket? I'm pretty sure if that's all I added to my pack I wouldn't even notice the weight difference, but I sure would probably enjoy the trip more.

Yeah Brad, me too, but this is BPL, and a lot of what we love to discuss it how low can you go…..? In fact, I am so uncomfortable with insects eating me, that my bare minimum is a tarptent. But I am a big softy ;)

FWIW I wasn't trying to be a weight weenie (taking fly fishing and possibly DSLR gear). I was just thinking that it MAY be impractical to plan for an event which is quite unlikely to occur.

I think the poncho tarp is perhaps the way to go, mainly for emergency purposes.

Hmmm…

How's about a large-ish poncho tarp with a free-hanging 0.7oz nanoseeum mesh liner ;P

THANKYOU for this post. I am doing the JMT in August and it is nice to get a reminder that weather can be nasty even in paradise!!