How The New Wilderness Travel Rules Affect JMT Hikers in 2020
**As of March 2020, this post is outdated. INF 'reclarified' that there will still be an exception for JMT and PCT hikers to exit to resupply. All is well again!**
As of December 2019, Inyo National Forest has some new rules. Or, rather, a clarification of old rules. Or, rather, a clarification that an exception to the old rules is no longer an exception. But, there is at least one exception to this new lack of an exception. And it's also unofficial.
Yup, I was confused too.
There has been a lot of talk on the John Muir Trail hiker facebook page about it if you want to get into the details and debate. I'm just going to outline the main points and some of the implications here for those of you that may be confused or unaware of this change.
What Rules Are Changing?
These rule changes boil down to one thing: the definition of continuous wilderness travel. This is important because for a wilderness permit to be valid, you must maintain continuous wilderness travel throughout your trip. Any deviation invalidates your permit. Continuous wilderness travel is defined by the Inyo NF website as:
- An unbroken path on system trails or within wilderness.
Now this is kind of vague, so they broke it down further. The kinds of actions that do not constitute continuous wilderness travel and will invalidate your permit are:
- "Leaving the trail system for resupply or taking time off"
- "Exiting the wilderness to reenter at a different location"
- "Leaving the trail and using an alternative method of travel, like a shuttle bus or a vehicle"
This has more or less always been the rule throughout the Sierra, but there used to be an exception that allowed for a 24 hour exit and reentry allowance in Inyo National Forest.
This exception officially no longer exists. Without the exception, using Kearsarge Pass and hitching or riding into Independence for resupply will now invalidate any wilderness permit. It also invalidates the Mt. Williamson Motel package option.
Why doesn't it also invalidate the VVR ferry? I don't know why, but this is the only exception to the rule. The VVR ferry is most definitely a vehicle (kind of like the Mt. Williamson Motel shuttle bus, maybe?), but somehow the rule doesn't apply to them.
How This Affects John Muir Trail Permits
Nearly everyone will by affected by this change. Essentially the entire second half of the John Muir Trail, or about 110 miles, is now without a good resupply option.
Reasonably fit and fast hikers will be able to go without the resupply, but they may have to make sacrifices in how they want to do their trip. We fall into this category, having used Independence for resupply on our 2019 trip to allow us to relax a little on the last leg (although weather ultimately intervened there).
People who don't have the physical ability or those who have others depending on them (children or older folks) to carry weight will have to figure something else out.
What to Do About It
There are pretty much only two ways to resolve the problem for those who need the extra resupply. They are:
- Leave the trail system and plan on obtaining a new permit from your desired trailhead (legal, but maybe difficult)
- Leave the trail system and come back using the same permit (not legal, but probably easy)
Arranging a food drop at the trailhead will still be legal, but for the vast majority of hikers this isn't really an option so I won't address it here.
Getting a new permit
What a lot of people will ultimately choose to do is get a new permit from the Onion Valley trailhead in order to stay legal. Currently there are 60 permits per day available. Of those 60, 36 are reservable and 24 are for walk-ups.
For people who are okay with locking in plans ahead of time, reserving an advance permit for the day you'll need it is not all that difficult. It should be done months in advance for sure, but it's not competitive like SOBO permits from Yosemite are.
Many others, however, will not have definitive itineraries and prefer flexibility. Those folks will have to rely on walk-up permits, which could prove more difficult. That difficulty will of course be exacerbated by the fact that now any JMT hiker who wants to resupply in Independence will have to deal with this as well.
It's up to you which of these you want to go for, but they both have pretty significant drawbacks.
Breakin' The Law
And of course, there's also the illegal option. I won't endorse this one too much, but considering you are technically allowed to walk all the way to the trailhead as long as you don't step foot pavement, it shouldn't be too hard.
You'll only have a problem if there's a ranger stationed right at the trailhead, checking everyone's permits. Aside from that scenario, no one who checks your permit on trail would have any way of knowing you left the trail system (aside from the fact that you'll probably smell a lot nicer than someone who didn't). With this in mind, it's odd that they even bothered to change the rule in the first place.
A Few Thoughts About The Change
There are a couple possible reasons for doing something like this.
The biggest reason is to attempt to reduce JMT traffic on the Kearsarge Pass trail. While understandable given the amount of people that use it, it doesn't really make sense. Very few people will actually stop using it, they'll just have more difficulty doing so. I know permit systems and hoops to jump through are part of what keeps the backcountry from being completely overrun with traffic. If it was all easy, everyone would do it. But there's so little to actually gain with this action that I don't think its useful.
The second is just to put all the various agencies on the same page, with consistent rules for all of them. I totally get wanting consistency, but this rule is mostly unenforceable anyway. Why put current permit holders in the awkward position of needing to roll the dice halfway through their trip? For most people John Muir Trail hikes are planned far in advance and a lot of money and time is sunk into making them happen. The new rule is just a wrench thrown into those plans that causes extra unnecessary stress.
At this point it's pretty obvious that I think a 24 hour exception still makes sense here. I think I know why the rule was changed, but I don't think it was all that well thought out.
The community will certainly continue to talk and debate about it, but those are my thoughts for now. If you think differently or have something to add though, I'd love to hear it in the comments!
