Just David's Bio
I am attempting the JMT beginning in Mid-August. Despite 45 years of backpacking and dreaming of a hike longer than eight days, this will be my first thru-hike. The JMT has been on my bucket list since I was 16.. In 1981 as an ignorant, hubristic teenager, I hitchhiked across-country and showed up at Sequoia NP in early March requesting a permit for a weekend route up to the JMT. I’m sure you can imagine the ranger’s eye roll and muttering. I was provided a safer route to around 9000 ft where I slept on packed snow (no sunglasses). I clearly remember the sense of exhilaration at being in the pines and the snow in sight of all that granite. Now 62, and having struggled with knee injuries and longer recovery times in recent years, hiker mortality is massing for me like clouds at the pass. It’s go now or risk not going at all. Having said that, it may seem strange that my goal is to resist the call of miles as much as I can. What I want most is to explore round the bend, dry on a rock after a swim beneath a cliff, watch hawks glide, read and listen to coyotes as moonlight floods the tent. Again and again. Old school romanticism. Perhaps the gravity of scree fields and sleet and beetle ravaged trees will beat it out of me. I sincerely hope not. I plan to go slow as the amount of food I can carry allows. And yes, I will bring sunglasses. Pronouns: he/him.
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