Sierras Noob: JMT – Early August

Looks like you have most things covered, but you’ll want sunblock and a sun hat IHMO for sun protection. And your sleep socks weight must be off at 76 oz. You could cut several ounces out of your toiletries and repair if you want to cut some weight. You may also want more than 4 stakes with the Hexamid and a backflush syringe for the water filter.

Thanks Lester. My feet would have probably been pretty toasty with 76 oz socks, though. Edited.

I’ll be wearing a big ole’ sun hat, but not sure which one to go with. Bulletproof Nylon Tilly’s, or a cooler floppy polyester. Decisions. And I’ll go ahead and toss in some sun block.

About the stakes, I’ve toyed around with removing stakes. I use rocks and found items often, but perhaps the more sensible route is to keep a few msrs for high tension points, sub out the rest with some light Ti stakes, and carry the full 10?

Have recently switched to the squeeze from the mini. I’ve heard that the smartwater cap doesn’t work as well as a back flush with the squeeze as it does with the mini. Thoughts?

For a sun hat, check out the OR Sun Runner hat. I used on daily on the JMT without a sunburn, only putting a bit of sunblock on my nose. This had closes in front and covers most of the neck and much of the face. As for stakes, I prefer the UL Ti hooks for the panel pullouts, regular Ti hooks for the back and back corners, Ti V-hooks for more holding power on the front corners, and a long Groundhog for the front tiedown of my Deschutes CF (similar to a Hexamid SoloPlus).

The Sierra have far more rocky, thin soil than is typical in the PNW. At altitude especially I often have to bury stakes at multiple points under piles of rocks because the soil is too thin for normal staking. I suppose you could tie off your guy lines to rocks but I like the ease and stability of a stake. I have a Hex too and find that it often requires a good amount of staking for stability in wind and rain. Oh and by the way adding line-locs to the body of this tent really helps to get a taut pitch.

I swear by Sun Grubbies for hands. If there are mosquitoes–and the late melt off ‘may’ make for a longer season–the grubbies help protect the back of your hands from both them and sun. But you’re at high altitudes and the sun is pretty fierce. It reflects off granite too. You don’t need to get burned to be over exposed ( I had a melanoma sliced out of my face. Avoid this!)

The JMT is like useful rock capital of the universe and the ground is tough. I don’t think you will have a problem anchoring your shelter with rocks. I ended up loving rocks because I could finesse the tension on my Duplex to perfection without restaking.

I’d take more than 12″ of luekotape.

I swear by my Railriders Ecomesh pants rather than shorts/windpants but ymmv.

Otherwise your list looks great to me. Enjoy the hike!

This is off topic, but anyone know what happened to the RR Eco Mesh men’s shirt?

And thanks all. Going to pack some sunblock, get a good hat, some lighter stakes, use rocks, and definitely add more Luekotape. I just lazily pulled that from my shorter trip 3 season list.

@jeffery, I have some basic sun gloves that I’d originally decided on bringing, but figured I’d end up never putting them on. I’ll reconsider, or throw on some sunblock often, and/throw some socks over my hands if the mosquito sections are brief.

“I ended up loving rocks because I could finesse the tension on my Duplex to perfection without restaking.”

Oh, true. I just prefer to anchor a stake with rocks, which can likeweise be moved. I’m clumsy and worry that a guy line wrapped around a rock might slip off. For most people this wouldn’t be an issue.

Fwiw I have never had a line slip off a rock despite some crazy storms. I girth hitch my guyline around a smaller, flat rock the size of a cheeseburger and then place a larger cantaloupe size rock on top of the line with the cheeseburger behind it.

I think I read the cheeseburger is called a chock.

+1 on what Matthew said. All you do is pull a bight of rope through the end loop of a guyline and then you hitch the resulting loop around a flatish rock as your base rock.

Are you going without a stove?  I am going in September and still trying to figure out the food side of things.  What are you taking for food?

I have through-hiked the JMT 4 other times.  You list looks great.  As I am getting older the need for a warm nights sleep has pushed me to a 10 degree EE Enigma.  You shouldn’t have any problem with the 20 degree quilt.  There might be a few chilly nights but nothing that you shouldn’t be able to handle with that setup.  Have a great trip.

Hey Jonathon, I am going stoveless. Nido with calorie dense granola in the morning, Pro bars, trail mix with plenty of chocolate in it, corn tortillas, nutella, tuna, electrolyte mix. For dinner time, lots of dehydrated refried beans and minute rice with seasoning (similar to Andrew Skurka’s), and some instant potato bases.

I have celiac’s disease, so all I do at home is cook. I like not cooking on the trail if I can help it.  So you could sub those corn tortillas for flour, etc. JupiterHikes did the Eastern Continental Divide stoveless, and might be worth looking into. John Zahorian (if you a sugar maniac) and Neemor are also stoveless resources. Feel free to dm me if you’d like to talk more about food.

About using rocks, I guess I’d do this for the panel pull outs only? Matthew and Lester, can you guys recommend a guy line length to cut for these using that method?

Trey, on my Duplex I added ~18″ lengths of Lawson Glowire to all eight guylines using a bowline at each end. When I staked I just ignored my “rock loops”. My thought was that the rock loops were totally sacrificial and could be moved around if one broke.

If I was leaving for the JMT with a Duplex today I’d just add an extra foot to each tie out and call it good. My Duplex had Linelocs… Do I recall correctly that Hexamids don’t use Linelocs?

If it get really windy, rocks are unbeatable as anchors IMHO, unless you are camping on snow and use pickets, skis or deadmen, or camping on cobble stone beaches and pound driftwood pieces into the ground like giant tent stakes. On my Deschutes tarp each of the corner guidelines is 30” long, including bowline (bowlines hold a nice loop shape) and Lineloc. The two panel pullouts are 6” each with no linelocs, and the main front line is 6” with Lineloc and knot. All are 2.3mm glowwire. Zpacks used to sell linelocs with pre-attached loops for retrofitting onto any tarp.

ZPacks still sells them here.