I wonder whether it would help to know that there IS no official route, that the trail is largely a cultural construct.?
There is no single authority governing the trail, as there is for example with the PCt and the AT.? In 1915, the California State legislature began allocating funds to be spent on the trail under the direction of the State Engineer, at the time Wilbur McCLure.? At a meeting in June of that year attended only by McClure, William Colby and Walter huber of the Sierra Club and representatives of Sierra and Sequoia National Forests, it was agreed that what the legislature meant was that McCLure was to both decide the route of the Trail and have overall supervision of its completion.? Mclure then joined the 1915 and 1916 Mather Mountain Party(s), sponsored and led. by Stephen Mather, at the time the Assistant to the Secretary of the Interiior, to begin scouting? and deciding on the Route.? McClure filed his final report laying out the only official route ever determined for the JMT, in November of 1917.
A number of de facto changes were made to the route, including using Happy Isles instead of Mirror Lake and SNow Creek/Tioga Road for the route to Tuolumne. Moving the High Trail to the Thousand Island/Garnet/Shadow Lake route, Forester Pass,? Bear Ridge, Senger Switchbacks, wre adopted, but there were no further official designations - if there ever were - by the State.? Yosemite placed its own signs and submitted mapping data to the USGS as did the Forests and SEKI. Various guidebooks have described variations to the route, such as at Tuolumne Meadows, and have settled with some continuaing variation on a generally understood route. ?
But what remains today is still subject to considerable interpretation, and the idea of a trail growing by custom and use rather than by government edict has become a cultural tradition on the trail.? Starr's Guide for example has recognized no fewer than five major "Alternative Routes" for the trail in Yosemite alone, and Yosemite has but one trailhead sign for it, and it is not at Happy Isles, but Lyell Canyon.? The Park also issues 2/3 of its permits allowing following following the trail over Donohue Pass for the Lyell trailhead.Despite this, Elizabeth Wenk's book has become the standard guide and best represents the cultural consensus of what is currently considered THE John Muir Trail. "According to Wenk" could well be taken as the "According to Hoyle" of the JMT.
All of the interpretations from McClure to Starr to Wenk provide at least the quality and essence of the original High Mountain Route? as it has been experienced over the past 115 years, and none is more official right now than any other.? There are just degrees of cultural acceptance, which may be a meaningless abstraction when compared to the actual experience of individual interpretations and the adventure of individual exploration and discovery.
