The Mighty Quinn’s Complete The JMT, & here is their story !

Here is the incredible story of Derek and Katy and their experience on the JMT! What an awesome perspective, Enjoy.

House Quinn survives the John Muir Trail. Katy and I exited the JMT at Happy Isle right on schedule on August 6th, 2021. I had walked right by the finish line sign (or starting point for SOBOers) when Katy shouted “Derek! Look!.” I had meditated on that sign for days at this point and overwhelming feeling of relief pulsed through my veins. I had effectively quit filming on the last day on trail. The movement to grab the camera and wrestle it out of my now worn peak design capture (a must have piece of equipment for camera folk) and dial in a shot was rendered non-essential when we saw the “Happy Isle 11mi,” sign. We did need that finish line picture though. We enlisted the first guy who passed by who proceeded to take some of the laziest pictures we’d ever seen. For a moment so grandiose, you’d expect better but this may have been the first time this dude had ever used a camera. He handed us back the iPhone and asked where we had just come from. Katy said “We just finished the John Muir Trail.” With 0 enthusiasm he responded “oh, what’s that.” “It’s the trail from Whitney to Yosemite, we’ve been out for 3 weeks.” He casually said “oh, we did half dome today. Kicked our asses.” He walked away. We were confused.

With daylight slipping away from us, we made an aggressive push to grab some pizza in Yosemite before the restaurant closed. After an additional mile, we rejoiced when we saw the massive line and found out they would be open later than advertised. Backpacks on. Blood and dirt and filth on my shorts. Exhaustion on our faces. One would imagine there would be fanfare or that there was some sort of a fast pass to the front of the line for folks who had just finished the JMT. It was the back of the line for us. Now surrounded by freshly showered Yosemite goers in a scene straight out of an REI advertisement, we came to the realization that no one had any idea what we had just done. Stories of half dome, bear sightings, and parties back at camp were overheard and I smugly thought to myself “oh you guys did half dome…. cool story bro.”

An older gentleman inquired about our backpacks. “Those look heavy, where have you been.” It was about time someone inquired. “We just finished the JMT,” I said. Once again we were met with a “Oh what’s that?” “Oh it’s the trail that runs from the top of Mt. Whitney to the Yosemite floor.” His eyes lit up a bit and said “oh my goodness, how far is that?” “211 miles but we ended up doing 258 miles total,” Katy said. At last, some attention. He waved over his wife over and eventually his kids and said “These kids just walked 250 miles.” A handful of other folks in line had also began taking notice. We felt really cool. A few minutes later, the mans wife surprised us with a couple beers. I won’t say it was the best beer of my life but it was in contention. She then asked us about how difficult the trail was.

Lone Pine Kurt dropped us off at the Cottonwood Pass trailhead around 2pm on July 15th. He provided us with tips and jokes and the ideal pack weight ceiling for an enjoyable trip. 38lbs is the Lone Pine Kurt standard. Katy’s was 37 and my clocked in at a bloated 48. After a stretching session and a stop at the last semi-acceptable toilet for days, we hit the trail. Cottonwood Pass isn’t part of the JMT but it is the significantly easier permit to secure. The downside is an addition 25 miles to the official start of the JMT at Mt. Whitney. We showed signs of backpacker rust in our first 24 hours. The easy 4 mile day turned into 6 when I arrogantly hung a left when we needed to go right. My head was exploding overnight presumably from the 11,200ft camp and our site was littered with clothes, stuff sacks and equipment the next morning. We were also the last ones out of camp. I also lost our bidet after 5 uses at best. Rust aside, we both agreed that it was so magical to finally be on trail after months of planning. No work days in sight, just ol Sweetness and I out on the JMT. I’m also a bit of an amateur with words so I won’t attempt to describe the crushing beauty that surrounded us (but I am currently editing our video loosely titled “JMT – The way out is thru.” It’s a play on words).

The day we arrived at our Whitney basecamp was our first challenging experience on trial. I may or may not have but definitely did underestimate our mileage for the day and we ended up discouraged and on our asses beside timberline lake. It looks like a guitar on a map albeit a smaller guitar but it was easy to mistake it for the actual guitar lake that sat an additional 500ft above us. Katy was not thrilled with me.

Fortunately for us (me), there was a campsite just up the trail below the climb to guitar lake so around 4pm, we called it a day. Whitney in the morning. The alarm chirped at 1:30am and after a couple snoozes, we’d set off. One of the advantages of hiking in darkness is the inability to see how high and how far we had to go. Seeing the blanket of stars darkened only by the surrounding monstrous peaks was one of the early highlights of the trip. Whitney has a reputation due that whole highest point in the contiguous United States thing but I would argue the climb was rather mild. I would describe it as a 3500ft baby soft ascent. 3 hours into our climb, the landscape began to light up what I imagine, at the end of my life, will be some of the best views I ever took in. Our eyes though small in size were seeing enormous things. At the trail crest, we encountered who Katy thought was our first coin and a handshake folk. 5 men in I would guess their late 50s were making the push to Whitney and the end of their section hike. After talking with them for a couple minutes, one of the lads mentioned that 2 of the guys in their group were finishing the JMT. After 3 failed attempts cut short due to injuries, they decided to section hike the JMT to completion and we were seeing them a mere 2 miles from the finish. Even better, we had packed 2 coins with the hope that we would surprise an exhausted JMT finisher at the top.

Well that didn’t go as we had hoped. The 5 men blasted their way to the top of Whitney, beating us to the summit by 30 minutes. This wouldn’t have mattered had the dark clouds that floated off in the horizon not aggressively made their way towards the peak. Katy was feeling the effects of 14000ft and needed to slow the pace considerably and we were becoming concerned that we wouldn’t make it to the top at all. Selfishly, stopping to congratulate the two dudes on their accomplishment was no longer a concern of ours. Turning back because of the weather would mean we wouldn’t technically complete the JMT. I encountered one of the guys at the shelter on top of Whitney and gave him a “job well done,” before setting foot on the high point. In that moment, I was the highest person in the lower 48. Quite an interesting thought to ponder. Katy had found her way to me, the effects of the altitude now superseded by the buzz of Whitney. We took in the view, one of those “you gotta see for yourself,” views and anxiously watched the dark clouds begin to engulf the surrounding peaks before taking aim at us. Without going into the entire story, I had packed a beer with me to enjoy at the top of Whitney. My grandpa, the mighty Dan King aka Papa Dan passed away 2 days before we hit trail. Going back to Ohio for the funeral would put an end to our JMT dreams and my mom encouraged me that Papa Dan wouldn’t dare interfere with our plans, even in death. I would need to find another way to pay my respects. I had hoped to find an Old Milwaukee beer but it’s apparently banned (or just impossible to find) in California so I settled for a fitting Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. With virtually no time to grieve, we hit the trail and I lugged those 12 ounces nearly 30 miles to pay tribute. I thought about that beer and what it meant a lot over the first 4 days; The massive loss of a staple in our family. Never doing pull ups on his arms again. As I reached in our bag and felt that semi cold beer now in my hand, an overwhelming amount of love and grief poured over and out of me. Enough of that. Cheers Papa Dan. Whitney was now in our peak bags and those dark clouds were now nearly overhead. Other summiteers chose to hangout for a while but we had read enough about the danger of weather on trail so we bolted. No more than 5 minutes later it began snowing. 10 Minutes later it began raining. It rained for the next 24 hours. Rugged.

We made it back to our camp a couple hours later and after devouring a Mac and Cheese dinner for 2 (Katy had African Peanut Stew), we encountered a young fella who went by the name of Detour. Detour had been on trail for 15 days and was headed for Guitar Lake with planned sunrise summit and completion of the JMT. Detours journey was similar to many others we’d eventually hear but his story of catching a ground current from a lightning strike days before had me thinking that Detour was worthy of the coin. He joked about his primary care physicians likely concern over continuing the trail. Our first coin and a handshake went to the powerful Detour.

That first week was excellent. The views were God D*mn spectacular. We had settled into a trail family. Our new friend shared Angels Envy with us and we performed a rendition of Don Mclean’s American Pie to the best of our abilities. We were meeting adventurous souls on trail every day. We’d overtaken the mighty Forester Pass. Everything you see in a YouTube video, we were experiencing real time. It’s pompous to say but 7 days in the Sierras would have most people begging for the comfort of a couch and the warmth of an endless shower. We found ourselves resupplied at the Mt. Williamson hotel on day 8 and with crushing views of the Sierra behind us, we looked on eager to resume trail the next day. We were in for a good old fashioned humbling.

When we eventually finish our video, this particular week will be well documented. On day 9 we resumed trail via Kearsarge Pass which provides yet again, another GD spectacular view, worthy of the words of someone much more descriptive than I. My buddy Cole had told me about the “G Spot view,” on the Nat Geo maps and he wasn’t kidding. The view overlooking Bullfrog Lake will make you a believer. We pushed on for Glen Pass. Any JMTer reading this knows that this is where the love story turn sour. Glen Pass would collectively be agreed upon as the worst pass on trail (although I maintain my eternal anger and rage for Pinchot). Maybe it was taking on 2 passes in a day but Glen worked us to our first feelings of “oh shit, this wasn’t a good idea,” on trail. The exposure on the south side turned us to bacon and talus fields on the north had us begging for rest at Rae Lakes, which we were excited for that morning but now were only seeking a reprieve. As beautiful as Rae Lakes were, we couldn’t care less. Our asses were kicked. This became a reoccurring theme for the following days.

Kearsage. Glen. Pinchot. Mather. Muir. We were warned about the trail blues that may set in around days 11-14 and they were no joke. Our trail family was able to resupply in Independence one day earlier than us so we had fallen a day behind them. We were camping by ourselves. We were encountering fewer SOBOers. Even though we were together, without the occasional stop and chat, we began to feel lonely. The happy highs of week 1 were over. Aches and pains blossomed. The morning of Mather Pass, I woke up with a dull ache in my foot that subsided once we started the days work. 6 miles later at Lower Palisade Lake, I felt a violent, sharp pain in my right foot in the middle of the right side. The discomfort would stay with me for the duration of the trip.

I can’t effectively describe those days. If you know, you know. Thru hiking is glorified on social media with beautiful shots taken on expensive cameras, like a Sony A7iii, by beautiful people who make Muir Pass look like a walk in the park. The reality is that thru hiking is really F*****G hard. No one told me my pack would eventually begin to slip on my hips every 4 minutes and that there wouldn’t be a great solution to the problem until I just buy a different pack. The days without cloud coverage were absolutely miserable. Tree coverage was scarce. I wasn’t told about the razorblade forest in Yosemite, 2 miles from Half Dome. There was no insider tip that told us we would question our intestinal fortitude and physical ability to go another mile ALL DAY EVERY DAY. We were told that the bear creek cutoff was the way to go to get to VVR only to encounter that GD 600ft climb that truly had us on the ropes. When we got phone service briefly by the tower across the lake at VVR, no one suggested that our house

might flood and all of our belonging on the ground level were ruined. Week 2 sucked and then we got to VVR.

I’m going to go ahead and say it; the JMT should be rerouted through VVR and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees. As bad as our bodies and minds felt and even though we had limited service and our house flooded, the fresh beers and fellow JMTers at VVR provided the absolute dire morale boost we needed. As a matter of fact, the new owners mother who had shuttled us to the resort picked up two girls walking on the road back to paradise AND they just happened to be part of the trail family that we’d fallen behind. Amy and Sarah of “Amy Sarah Steph,” or SAS because they were sassy in all the right ways. It was such a blessing to see people we knew. Amy showed us the ropes around camp, where to set up, how to get food and drinks. VVR had a full kitchen (insert heart emoji). And then we found the rest of our trail family. Brandon and Ryan, brothers who we had actually shuttled to the trailheads with as well as SAS and now a growing family with Steven, Bones, Solo Stef, Kevin, and Nicole. We drank ice cold beers and stuffed our faces with food from the kitchen, sharing tales and personalities of the trail. It was on this day where I took solace in the realization that everyone was miserable, everyone hurt and we were all sharing this miserable experience. We weren’t the only people who felt deceived by the bear creek trail into VVR. We weren’t the only ones who didn’t see Glen Pass coming. The talus fields really pissed everyone else off too! But the more beers we drank and the more stories we shared, the more Katy and I realized this trip wasn’t supposed to be easy. We wanted an adventure and we were getting it. I wanted to find out if I had something epic in the tank. Katy wanted to push through something truly difficult. The things you don’t see on social media, the struggles and doubt and lifting up your partner even though you’re completely miserable, those are the parts I now look back on fondly knowing we hiked the f****** John Muir Trail. Coins and handshakes were due to Brandon and Ryan collectively, to SAS collectively, to Bones and to Nicole, who was really only getting started. She was headed south. She messaged us from the top of Whitney with her coin in hand to thank us. A better placed thank you goes to John Belanger, the Rugged Outdoorsman, for such a bad ass token of accomplishment but I digress. The next morning, we had breakfast and said our goodbyes as most of our exit dates and itinerary plans conflicted. We camped with SAS one more time and passed Bones who was setting up 5 miles from Reds Meadow. Happy to report that everyone ended up finishing.

In terms of mileage, the last week on trail was just as difficult as the previous week but saw relief from what had become our normal elevation gains. The battle became one of perseverance and battling the inner voices that were telling us “Exit Reds, you’ve done enough. Hitch a ride out of Tuolomne, we can come back and do Yosemite some other time.” The foot pain from Lower Palisade Lake was now excruciating and had us having a serious discussion about finishing on the south side of Reds Meadow. Compression bandages were no longer providing the comfort required to walk another 60 miles. Ibuprofen couldn’t touch the pain. Not finishing would mean going home to tell my buddies that I almost did the JMT and they would playfully never let me live that down. I prayed for a miracle. It was one of those times where God doesn’t give you what you want but provides you with what you need. Shortly after, Katy suggested I try an additional sock for a really snug foot. We were grasping at straws at this point but to her credit, it worked. My foot did not hurt for the remainder of the trip. No exaggeration, it had been incredibly painful but was relegated to nothingness. We trudged on. Katy was also experiencing a tightness near her belly button that she attributes to the pounds of gummy bears she ate on trail. Bears or not, she was needing to stop more often and our goal of finishing on the 6th was slowly slipping away. Paired with fatigue and a lust for food and seeing our dogs, we were once again days from finishing but questioning if that was the wise move. What if something was really wrong

with her belly? Fortunately, Katy reported feeling much better on the stretch between Shadow and Thousand Island Lakes. Presented with an easy out, she opted to finish and I think she’s pretty cool for that.

We were 40 miles from the Yosemite floor with 2 days to go before our planned exit. Simple math tells you we would need to cover 20 miles both days and although we had gotten used to knocking out 14-17 mile days, a single 20 mile day would be pretty ambitious for us. 2 of them would be a real challenge. Our first 20 miles day had us going over Donahue Pass, which I thought was baby soft but Katy hated, and then crossing into Yosemite on the other side. We picked up our pace in a flat meadow for what must have been days but were in fact, only hours. Passed by Toulomne meadows and made an aggressive nighttime push to Cathedral Lakes. Hiking at night in Yosemite is one of my scarier endeavors. Bears and rumors of bears in the Yosemite backcountry were common and we couldn’t see 8 feet in front of us. We stopped shy of the Cathedral Lakes junction and rested our tired heads. One last morning of beating Katy out of the tent, packing my bag, eating and waiting on her to finally crawl out so I could tear down camp, roll it up and be on our way. Katy was very graceful in the mornings. Taking deep breaths, brushing her hair, stretching a little and staying in her warm bag as long as I would tolerate. I was more methodical. Deflate all pillows and sleeping pad. Put on boots. Get out of tent. Stuff sleeping bag into stuff sack. Roll sleeping pad. Put sleeping bag in backpack first. Stuff pad as far down as the sleeping bag would allow. Take off sleepy clothes. Put on stinky dirty shorts and sun hoodie. Eat. Brush. Put bear canister in bag. Stuff remaining clothes around canister. Shit. Wait on Katy to get out of tent so I can pack tent.

As miserable as we had been at times, that final morning was bittersweet. It was the end of the most freedom I think I’ve ever felt and will feel. The culmination of a bucket list item. The definition of adventure. I wanted to keep this relatively brief but the reality is that I could extend this from 5 pages to an easy 20 if I wanted to bore the reader with the day to day in all of its tedium and glory. The John Muir Trail is a proximity story, you have to be there to fully appreciate it. We finished our last pass, were caught off guard by one last up section and got separated and thought the other had been abducted for around 40 minutes. We walked through the razor blade forest. Wear pants if you’re hiking the true JMT trail through Yosemite. I helped a girl with gnarly blisters get patched up. Oddly enough, as excited as I was to see Yosemite for the first time, my spirit was finished. Half dome was dope. Vernal Falls was cool. I just wanted pizza and beers.

We had finally made it to the inside of the building and ordered the El Capitan. After ordering, we went outside to find a place to sit and were met with arms waving us over to a table. Two younger dudes who had also finished the JMT earlier that day were finishing up their first real meal in weeks and noticed our bags, dirty clothes and filthy bodies. We sat down as angry on lookers glared at the two boys, hoping to snatch the table when they got up. “We just finished this afternoon,” one of the boys said. “You deserve this table.” We chatted with Liam and Keiran (sp) for a few minutes before the made their way back to the backpacker campground, an area of Yosemite where they through all the dirty backpackers and thru hikers. Although we were officially back in the real world, it was pretty Cool joining the ‘secret society’ of – those who know…

The Rugged Outdoorsmen would like to thank The Mighty Quinn’s for sharing their story with all of us, and for gifting our JMT coins out on the trail. If you enjoy this story as much as we did, then you need to go to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_VDFr8QKIfSmOtm_xS44Q

and see the rest of the story.

JB