Offer to resupply - JMT mile 88 (Vermillion) - with a catch

All discussion related to transportation to, from and within the Sierra Nevada. Need directions or flight information? Info on road conditions? A ride to the trail head? Can you offer a ride, or do you run a transportation business or shuttle service for the Sierra Nevada? Come on in and post the details!
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JohnCurranLadd
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Re: Offer to resupply you at JMT mile 88 (Vermillion) - with a c

Post by JohnCurranLadd »

Fishmonger

Thanks for the thought. I'm just too cheap to pay VVR to pick up my mail and bring it to the resort. Maybe I should get over it. Plus I've already done the route up Paradise Valley from Roads End to Woods Creek and would prefer not to do it again (twice on a RT). It would add 30 miles and 3500 ft to what is already a 160 mile - 30,000 feet trip. (Roads End to Woods Creek along Paradise Valley is lovely, but about 15 miles each way and a 3500 ft climb on the way North.) That's why it's attractive for me to start at the VVR end on a RT.

My hope is to find someone else who is either: (1) like me, too cheap to pay VVR to pick up the mailed food or (2), unlike me, who is too much in a hurry to take the ferry over to VVR and back. People who fit that profile (if they are not hiking solo) might find that my offer works for them. So it does not seem unfair to me. I'd be asking them to carry 7 lbs but delivering saving them 14-20 lbs, and without the VVR pickup charge (more weight savings for larger groups).

I'm not sure I wanted to stir up so much of a hornet's nest by this post. However, I loved your long post on a resupply strategy for a up-and-back with kids. Sounds like a great plan. With my two daughters, I could never get either to backpack more than 3-4 days (and in high schol 2-3 was tops). But then they got college, got to backpack with friends, and loved it and appreciated having known how to do it.

I've never heard that comment (don't cache in bear boxes) from rangers. I mark anything I cache with the date after which it is fair game for anyone else, so I don't feel it is an offense against trail etiquette. Particularly not at Woods Creek, where there are two large bear boxes that are usually less than 1/4 full.

John
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fishmonger
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Re: Offer to resupply - JMT mile 88 (Vermillion) - with a catch

Post by fishmonger »

your idea sounds great (and if I lived on the west side of the Sierras, I'd also be too cheap to pay somebody to move my stuff to the resort). The problem I see is that you need to find that on in a thousand hiker who may be doing what you have in mind, a the right time. Probably unlikely to bump into them online, if there's even somebody to be found.

Last year I was trying to find somebody to ride-share a shuttle from Lone Pine to Yosemite (park car end of Muir Trail, shuttle north and hike back), which probably has quite a number of prospective takers, but nobody replied anywhere online. Once there though, at Whitney Portal, we suddenly had 4 additinal people in the shuttle who decided it was worth the cash, only by asking around in the campground at the Portal the night before the ride.

Too bad there's no place where you can ask around for your planned trip to find the person who could benefit from your plan.

Hiking or hith-hiking to the Mono Hot springs post office from Vermillion may be an option for you - there you don't have to pay the resort to move your food a few miles. On the other hand, it's one of those hikes I know I will never repeat. It can get extremely hot down there.

We don't use the ferry on the lake (we're cheap, too, and don't want to wait for it) - on our way south, we come across Goodale Pass and from Graveyard Meadows, to the resort, from where we pick up a trail that starts just south of the dam and leads back up to the JMT at the top of Bear Ridge. Other than being dry, this trail is easier than the endless switchbacks on the JMT at the other end of the lake.

About the caching in bear boxes - go ask over on the Whitney Portal Store forum (http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/forum ... d=1&page=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; also a good place to look for somebody who may want to do what you are looking for) - there are actually a number of threads I saw rangers chime in on this, especially about bear boxes around Charlotte Lake where packers could leave food for hikers but are not allowed to leave there overnight.

PS - the only night I ever spent at Woods Creek was when there were about 50 boy scouts up there. It was awful - people kept taking our stuff out of bear boxes to put their crap in, there was screaming all night, bears probably kept a mile away due to that, but since that day I have made it a rule NEVER to stay at Woods Creek again.
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The Other Tom
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Re: Offer to resupply you at JMT mile 88 (Vermillion) - with a c

Post by The Other Tom »

JohnCurranLadd wrote: BTW, does anybody know of another site where I could post proposals like my original one for re-supply swaps (or car shuttle swaps) for the JMT?
John
Maybe this website ?
http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/forum ... p/ubb/cfrm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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amrowinc
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Re: Offer to resupply - JMT mile 88 (Vermillion) - with a catch

Post by amrowinc »

Here are two other fourms where you might find some help.

http://www.trailforums.com/room.cfm?roomID=31" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnmuirtrail/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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