On Feb 8, 2022, at 12:43 PM, Steve Perry <perry240@...> wrote:

?

Frustrated - Even Rush Creek TH is completely booked for July and the first week of August.?

On Feb 8, 2022, at 2:48 PM, ravi_jmt2013 <ravi@...> wrote:

?On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 11:56 AM, Peter Hirst wrote:

People sacrifice and forego this experience, sometimes for years for an idea of the thing, but? missing the thing in and of itself.? If you can seek your own High Mountain Route, and let go of the specific - and in some ways mediocre? - idea of it that became the JMT, you need not wait.

I couldn't agree more strongly with this. I totally get the desire to do the official route - I felt that way on my first JMT in 2013 and obsessively stuck to the trail and it was a great experience. But my subsequent trips, none of which have included 100% of the official JMT, have been equally great and it some cases better because the alternates are always less crowded. I think this really clicked for me the most in 2016 when I was going NOBO and resupplied at VVR. Rather than rejoining the JMT at the end of the lake, I went over Goodale Pass. I hiked for several hours on that day without encountering another hiker. As soon as I rejoined the JMT, I encountered literally dozens of southbound hikers within the first hour.?

I've redefined my goal for any long distance hike to be "a continuous set of footprints" rather than "official trail" and haven't regretted it.