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Colin Gregory

@colingregory

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Day 19 - Woke up to the sunrise crew on Clouds Rest, easily the earliest morning of the trip. It was bittersweet as we watched the sun rise over the Cathedral Range and light up the valley. The early hikers left the summit while David and I lingered, we simply did not want this trip to end. We had been on trail for 18 nights, only tasting ‘civilized’ life briefly at MTR, VVR, Red’s and Tuolumne. I missed my family, my fiancé & my cats...but life in the High Sierra had been even better than expected. We had our last coffee and first on-trail beer before packing our gear up a final time. With mixed emotions we started our 6,500’ descent, but not without a final side trip in mind. My home for the last 2.5 weeks had been my beloved @rei Quarter Dome 1. The Quarter Domes are two off-trail peaks that sit in the saddle between Clouds Rest and Half Dome and offer a pretty unique and spectacular view of both. We eventually connected with the Half Dome trail and the Yose summer crowds, backcountry solitude ended precisely right there. After another half mile we were back on the JMT proper. We followed it across Nevada Falls and down to Clark Point where we ran into our ride home! @davidisnice had spent a solo night out in LYV and was patiently waiting on our slow-moving butts at the popular viewpoint. All that was left were a couple miles and hundreds of people to wade through. We made it to the famous sign and took our souvenir pic. A trail marker showing 211 miles to Mount Whitney used to make me laugh, but here I was having actually walked from even further away - what a feeling it was.

This was last year on 8/15/19. A couple months before I married my biggest supporter. A year later we have a baby girl on the way and a completely different type of adventure awaits us come December. I am so thankful to have taken this opportunity when I did. Echoing the words of our wisest trail buddy, you never know what lies ahead. A baby, a global pandemic & countless CA fires are the new normal, who knows if this would have ever been possible for me after 2019. #johnmuirtrail #jmt2019 #yosemite #halfdome #cloudsrest #noborules taken in Quarter Domes by @colingregory

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Day 18 - Woke up at Upper Cathedral. We enjoyed blueberry muffins and some tentside coffee, the reality of the trip ending was real and not welcomed. I had one of the most fun fishing sessions of the last few weeks, chasing risers around the lake for a couple hours until I finally landed the largest fish of the trip. We packed up and lazily made our way up over ‘Cathedral Pass’ and left the JMT towards Sunrise Lakes. At the lowest of the 3 lakes we took a long lunch and swam around, surprisingly warm at 9,000’. Caught the last fish and filled up for our first water carry. 4 miles later we finally made it to the first valley view, coming up over the backside of Clouds Rest. I’ll never again look at it like I did this afternoon, having started 17 days ago and about 270 miles away, it didn’t really make sense to be here. We were speechless. We enjoyed the last burrito night watching an incredible sunset and then cowboy camped up top. Looking down into the valley but still outside of cell reception, it was a perfect final night. #johnmuirtrail #jmt #jmt2019 #yosemite #noborules taken in Clouds Rest by @colingregory

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Day 17 - We got a late start out of Lyell Canyon, caught a few Brook Trout in the Tuolumne and cruised down the flat trail to Tuolumne Meadows. We realized on this trip that there is nothing worse than long flat trails, the 5 miles seemed like some of the longest on the JMT! We enjoyed ourselves at the grill & store and did a little resupply for the last two nights (double cheeseburgers, beers). After charging our batteries and hanging with a thru-hiker named Yogi, we got back on trail and finished the 5 miles to Upper Cathedral Lake. We ate burgers under the famous peak and thought about when we would get to climb it. Cathedral Lake had the largest fish of the trip and made us work for a bite. Here we are the next morning goofing around while we dread the end of the journey and make sure we took enough pictures. #jmt #johnmuirtrail #jmt2019 #yosemite #lyellcanyon #tuolumnemeadows #cathedralpeak #noborules taken in Cathedral Lakes by @colingregory

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Day 16 - Woke up at Garnet Lake, caught a couple Brook and slowly packed up camp. We made our way over to 1,000 Island Lake where we got skunked on fish but not views. We didn’t stay long, will definitely come back here to enjoy the lake and climb Mount Ritter! We ate lunch near Island Pass before heading down and then up again to Donahue Pass, our 12th of 13 for the trip. It was a bittersweet feeling to make it to Yose, the end of the journey was tangible and it was not welcome. Cruised down into Lyell Canyon where we found an awesome riverside campsite and had our 2nd and last fire of the trip. #johnmuirtrail #jmt2019 #anseladamswilderness #yosemite #yosemitenationalpark #donahuepass #lyellcanyon #noborules taken in Thousand Island Lake by @colingregory

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Day 15 - Woke up at Red’s. After a huge breakfast, charging our gear and digging through the ‘hiker box’ we got back on trail. We had a long dusty hike through Devils Postpile, past Rosalie and Shadow Lakes and up to Garnet Lake. We had been told to camp at Garnet many times but when we got there at dusk there were lots of skeets, no vacant campsites, and the wind was picking up. We found a sketchy spot to set up and had dinner separately inside our tents for the first time. I kicked over my water and barely avoided disaster. I was cursing Garnet. The next morning (pictured) the wind was gone and I realized what people had been talking about. Dull caught a brook on his spin rod and we set out for Yosemite, our final park of the trip. #jmt #johnmuirtrail #jmt2019 #anseladamswilderness #inyonationalforest #devilspostpile #noborules taken in Garnet Lake by @colingregory

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Day 14 - Fished for Goldens in Lake Virginia, no luck. We then packed up and a mile later caught our first rainbows of the trip In Purple Lake. We had a long but mostly downhill day to Red’s Meadow. After two weeks on the JMT we were feeling strong and actually spent a good portion of this day jogging the trail. We saw a lot of people, many of them day hikers, many of them making comments about how much we looked to be enjoying ourselves. A lot of people talk about wanting to get off the trail towards the end, we were sad to only have 5 nights left. We hiked into Ansel Adams Wilderness and with the home stretch in sight, we enjoyed ourselves at Red’s. 3 hot meals, 2 milkshakes, beer, root beer, a candy reload & fresh fruit which may have been the best bite on the trip. A dip in their “hot springs” and a night in the backpacker’s camp and we were ready to take on Yosemite. #jmt #johnmuirtrail #jmt2019 #redsmeadow #johnmuirwilderness #anseladamswilderness #noborules taken in Ansel Adams Wilderness by @colingregory

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Day 13 - Skipped VVR breakfast and rode the water taxi back to the trail. Our plan for the day was to go over Silver Pass, down into Tully Hole and hopefully make it all the way back up to Lake Virginia. All day @daviddully was feeling the boysenberry pie he put down the night before, but he pushed on in what turned out to be one of our hardest days. 16.5 miles and 4,750’ gain later, we arrived at the far side of the lake (with the good campsites) and Dully pulled out his phone for this shot. We were back over 10,000’ and it was the coldest night of the trip, but thanks to VVR and some new base layers for Dull we perfected backcountry burrito night for years to come. #jmt #jmt2019 #johnmuirtrail #anseladamswilderness #silverpass #tullyhole #noborules taken in Lake Virginia (California) by @colingregory

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Day 12 - We expected a ‘nero’ day but instead had 13 miles to VVR. First person we saw was Feral! We had just made it before lunchtime ended and we shared three meals, free beers, and root beer floats before setting up for the night. The afternoon consisted of showers, laundry & many trips to the store for more beer, vitamin I & candy. For dinner we had another hot meal with @feral.hikes & @horacioheredia, here @daviddully makes the mistake of ordering a bit too much food and will pay the price the next day. We relaxed and didn’t take many pictures. This vid is actually from day 13 when we took the VVR water taxi back to the JMT, one of the more unique moments on the whole trip! If time allows, don’t skip VVR! #jmt #jmt2019 #johnmuirtrail #vermillionvalleyresort #noborules taken in Vermillion Valley Resort by @colingregory

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Day 11 - In the morning we hit the hot springs again then headed over to MTR to deal with our resupply. For the next hour we chatted with more people than we’d seen in weeks, mailed home about 2 lbs of stuff each & made some great finds in the hiker buckets. I spent some time hanging with the pets at MTR and was happier for it! It seemed everyone was headed south. Ironically, we experienced our only precipitation of the whole trip here, when we had canopies overhead. We said some goodbyes and headed up and over Selden Pass where we were shocked to see the views on both sides. Had a snack at Marie Lake and then made it as far as we could before camping near Bear Creek. @daviddully had mailed home his base layers and we got hit with one of our coldest nights yet. He had dinner from inside the tent & bag #jmt #jmt2019 #johnmuirtrail #johnmuirwilderness #muirtrailranch #seldenpass #noborules taken in Marie Lakes by @colingregory

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Day 10 - Finished the final snow miles to Muir Pass, quickly checked out the hut and took a pic! We thought we had a long day ahead, it was longer. In our first tough lesson with @guthookguides we ended up pushing 26 miles to MTR just in time to grab our buckets. When we arrived it was as an overwhelming party scene. We threw our camps up and headed across the San Joaquin to find the Blayney Hot Springs. After 64 miles in 3 days, the soak may well have saved the whole trip. @daviddully and I had been pretty much alone and on-trail for 10 days now, the next 8 would be broken up nicely with backpacker camps, beers and hot food! #jmt #jmt2019 #johnmuirtrail #kingscanyonnationalpark #johnmuirwilderness #muirtrailranch #noborules taken in Muir Pass by @colingregory

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Day 9 - Woke up at Palisade Lakes and ran down the Golden Staircase, thankful we were descending. Halfway down I realized we were looking at the infamous Devil’s Crags in the distance, a group of loose peaks that have claimed a couple of lives over the years. At the bottom we took a break and finally met a guy we had been leapfrogging since Whitney. He was a thru-hiker named Feral who was on the PCT and had already completed the AT this year. He took a selfie with us and let us sign his backpack! @feral.hikes became our unofficial ‘trail dad’. After lunch we saw some extreme kayakers go over waterfalls we thought would kill them, they came up smiling. We cruised almost all the way up to Muir Pass but saved it for the morning. This was also the start of some epic burrito nights to come. I was finally feeling nothing but happiness to be out there. #jmt #jmt2019 #johnmuirtrail #kingscanyonnationalpark #noborules taken in Muir Pass by @colingregory

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Day 8 - 1 week was in the books! We were feeling stronger so we went for 2 passes that day, Pinchot & Mather. Here I am almost to the top of the 2nd. If you don’t know who Stephen Mather was or what he did to create our parks, look him up! Part of the trail mentality is making it to places you ‘must’ camp, and Palisade Lakes (not pictured) was one of those places. We caught a couple of golden hybrids in the upper lake and called it a night. It was the first time we did a pass in the slush and it was a bit sketchy, 3 weeks after this a hiker slipped and unfortunately passed away. #jmt #jmt2019 #johnmuirtrail #kingscanyonnationalpark #palisadelakes #noborules taken in Palisade Lakes by @colingregory

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