Andrea Beyer Conquers The JMT

Here is the incredible story of a solo backpackers Journey on the JMT in her own words.

My thru hike of the John Muir Trail was absolutely incredible. I am still struggling to find the right words to describe it. Amazing? Hard? Breath-taking? Knee-hurting? I’m not sure. The pictures I took do not do justice either… and I have 400+ of them. I am subjected to the frustration of knowing how “amazing” my trip was but not being able to put it into any words that could make anyone else understand. Oh well… those who were with me will understand. We will be the small group of JMT21 hikers who saw the same sights and probably got hailed on by the same hail. There were quite a few people I met who had an impact on my trip.

Most times I backpack I end up meeting some people, but I still enjoy doing my own thing. My Ouachita Trail thru hike was completely solo and very lonely. It was a challenge, but I was excited to do the JMT and run into people.

My first day while riding the bus to get into Yosemite, I kept on thinking the guy sitting in front of me looked familiar. I could not place him until it clicked in my head. His name was Jobie, and we had talked a few times on the John Muir Trail 2021 Facebook page. We had commented on the same posts about transportation issues and start dates. I built up the courage to say: “This is going to be really weird if you aren’t him, but is your name Jobie?” The look on his face gave me the confirmation I needed. We talked for the next couple of hours about our trip planning and gear, etc. He was meeting another girl named Andrea and they were starting the next day. We had similar schedules, so it was exciting to know that I would be seeing them later on! As soon as we found Andrea 2.0, we started to gang up on Jobie and I knew this was a good group. That day, we got our permits and they headed to the backpacker’s camp while started the torturous climb out of Yosemite Valley on the JMT. BTW I do not recommend starting the JMT at 2 o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of a heat wave. It was SO hot! I finally made it to Little Yosemite Valley campsite but not before realizing my trustworthy water filter was messed up. How? I’m not sure. It worked before my trip, but now I couldn’t get any water to squeeze out. Great. I set up camp and had my permit checked by the rangers. I asked them what I should do, and they told me I should just bum filters off people until I got to Tuolumne meadows (2 days from now). They told me the guy next to me seemed pretty cool. So off I went to ask if I could borrow a water filter. It was embarrassing and I knew it was not a good way to start the trip. The guy’s name was Damien and he was pretty cool! He was on his third thru hike of the JMT. We talked and talked and talked. He had a longer schedule planned than I did, but with my next day planning to hike Half Dome and Clouds Rest, he could catch up to me.

Day 2 I climbed halfway up Half Dome because it was too scary and then I climbed all of Clouds Rest. It was beautiful and worth the 4-mile side trip. There were 360-degree views of Yosemite and Half Dome. BEAUTIFUL! As I was hiking back down to the JMT, I ran into Andrea 2.0 and Jobie. What a surprise! I decided to sit with them at their campsite and take a break before I continued. Trail friends are just different. You grow close in such a short time because you’re all there to do three things: hike, eat, sleep. They convinced me to not hike 4 more miles that day and to camp with them. I’m really glad I did. We ate together and fought off an obese squirrel. I decided to give one of my JMT coins from The Rugged Outdoorsman to each of them. I wish I could convey the feelings of closeness and belonging I felt that night. They were both surprised and grateful to receive a trail coin as remembrance of our meeting and time spent together. We talked about meeting up later in the trip, but things didn’t work out. I know we each had our own special trip though, and I was glad I shared part of it with them.

I left camp early the next day to hike to Tuolumne Meadows Post Office to pick up my resupply. This was an intense day because I was planning to go 25 ish miles (Tuolumne has a large no camping zone that I would have to make my way out of before stopping for the night). I hiked through a burn area and faced a pretty tough climb. At the top someone yelled at me – it was Damien! He was taking a break in the sun, so I joined him for a while. We talked for a while before I got up to head out. That next section I stopped quite a bit to take pictures. Once I got to a beautiful meadow with Cathedral Peak in the background, Damien yelled at me again. He had caught up to me while I was videoing the ground squirrels! The next few hours we hiked together. I think he was pushing a little harder to keep my pace, but I was really thankful for the company. He has done a lot of hiking in the Sierras and hiked most of the paths of the Camino de Santiago. While we hiked, I just kept on thinking of how bright and fun and easy-going Damien was. He definitely made my mood better on that hard day. I gave him a coin before we parted ways. I told him it was A: to commemorate his many hiking accomplishments and also B: to remember me and the time we spent together on the JMT. Each time I part ways with someone I’m going to write the same thing: I wish I could explain the affection I had for each of my friends I met on trail.

The next few days were lonely but not in a bad way necessarily. I met quite a few people going over Donohue Pass and passing by Thousand Island Lake. I’m the person who likes to have a schedule and stick to it. That’s the way I can be happy, but it also means I miss out on staying with groups I’ve met along the way. I ended up camping by myself most nights. I got off trail at Red’s to go into Mammoth Lakes for a shower and food before I prepared for the next 12 days without a shower. The next section out of Reds was beautiful, especially Lake Virginia. On Day 6 I thought I was going to have to get off trail because my knee started to kill me. I remember laying in my tent at Mono Creek crying because I just knew I was done. It had happened on previous hiking trips where my knee would start to hurt and then it would swell up to where I couldn’t bend it or put weight on it. So that sucked. I spent the afternoon feeling sorry for myself. Somehow when I woke up my knee still had jolts of pain depending on how I stepped, but I decided to push on. I know that people will say you’re supposed to be grateful for the journey you had, but the worst thing I could think of was not finishing. I figured I would try to make it to MTR and reassess there.

On Day 8, I camped at Marie Lake. There were quite a few JMT hikers camping there and we all sat on the little steps above the lake and ate dinner and talked. After a hard night before and many nights camping by myself, this was amazing. One of the guys gave me the trail name “Hungry”. My appetite was insatiable at this point and I had finished off everyone’s leftovers. He also said it was because of my determination and hunger to finish the trail. As we were eating dinner, a SARS helicopter flew overhead, and it was a shock to realize it was landing a few hundred yards from where we were. This is where I met Sheri aka Rocky. She was hiking a section of the JMT when her friend started to suffer signs of Rhabdomyolysis. They airlifted her friend out to Fresno, but Rocky’s car was at Bishop and she needed to get to it. I told her she could hike with me. Man oh man am I thankful for Rocky. We had so much fun. We got my resupply at MTR where I met Kim for the first time (I’ll talk more about him later) and recharged there and tried to book it to Evolution Lake. Rocky is a crazy fast hiker. She is itty bitty and carries a pack that’s bigger than she is. With my full resupply, she was killing me—all while talking the whole time. Did she seem out of breath ever? Nope. That night we got stuck in

a lightning and hailstorm at Evolution Creek. It was scary. We tried to set up her two-person tent quickly, but it still got soaking wet on the inside. Not to mention in our haste we set up in a low spot that quickly made the floor of the tent into a waterbed. I was miserable, Rocky was miserable. But I don’t think either one of us cried because we didn’t want to cry in front of each other. Haha! Luckily it cleared up and we moved to a better spot and was able to kind of dry stuff out. It was still wet in the morning, but what a way to bond with your new hiking partner. We worked hard to get over Muir Pass but got stuck in Muir Hut to wait out another storm. Kim was stuck there too. He is from South Korea but is going to school in Florida to become a pilot. We were on similar schedules for the JMT but hadn’t seen each other until MTR. We all decided to hike down from Muir Pass together. Rocky and I stopped at a campsite before he did but we talked about summiting Whitney together. The next day was pretty depressing as I hiked with Rocky to the Bishop Pass junction. I’d enjoyed camping with her. She is a badass hiking mom. I gave her the JMT coin while trying to hold back tears. I wasn’t ready to be by myself again and I really wish she could have finished out the trail with me. Again, I wish I could convey the feelings! Rocky is probably hiking the next section of the JMT as I am writing this. Next year she will finish at Mt. Whitney. Everyone who hikes is determined, but something about Rocky is just admirable. She is awesome.

The next few days were “shorter” for me. I planned to camp at a lake before each major pass. This ensured I got over a pass in the morning and made it to camp before the next afternoon storm hit. There were days I wanted to push further but I am glad for these days of rest and forced relaxation. Kim caught up to me at my campsite under Mather Pass, but he pushed on. It stormed like crazy that day and I actually asked some hikers who were coming down the pass if they had seen Kim and if he had died. Haha! This is where I started to believe that Kim had a habit of going over passes as a storm hit. Somehow, he made it okay, but I was always pretty comfortable in my tent. I also decided to make a bad decision and hike over Glen Pass and Forester Pass in the same day. It would be 19 ish miles but it would make getting to my final camp spot an easier day. Glen Pass was hard, but I felt like Forester was relatively easy. You just have to put your head down and press on. I camped with some awesome people the night before Guitar Lake. As I started up the climb to Guitar Lake, Kim caught up to me. I was so excited! Its odd because we didn’t know each other well, but after deciding we were going to climb Mt. Whitney together, I knew we were going to be friends. We laid around at Guitar Lake and he showed me how to make “good” ramen with spam (yuck). We went to bed early and woke up at 1 am to start our climb to Whitney for sunrise. It was hard at the beginning, but together we set a good pace. The last two miles were relatively easy but the air was definitely thinner up at 14k feet. I have a video of me walking the final few steps to the top of Whitney and the southern terminus of the JMT. I’m crying and Kim is vlogging and all smiles. For the final time, I will say I wish I could explain how close you can get to hiking partners so quickly. I would not have wanted to summit Whitney with anyone else. The climb down was awful. All I wanted was a burger and to get off my feet. Instead, it was a hard and rocky trail the whole way. A nightmare for my knees. Kim actually fell and sprained his ankle badly. We didn’t talk much and chose to focus on how much it sucked and the food that awaited us. I should have given the coin to Kim at the top of Whitney. That would have been an awesome picture. I had forgotten about it until I dropped him off at the hostel he was staying at. He deserved it.

I’m thankful for all the people I met on the trail. Each person had an impact on me and if I could have carried coins for everyone I would have. People like Jumper, Heavy, Tech, Condiment, Emily and her daughter, Rosemary, the Jasons, and David. The John Muir Trail was an amazing experience. I will never forget it.

You can contact Andrea @anbeyer27