lambertiana, that first section you did up the Tehipite Valley looks like it's an unmaintained trail (according to the Tom Harrison map). What was it like with a full pack? And how did you shuttle back to the Wishon Reservoir? Following your trip with a map makes me tired just looking at it.
The shuttle was easy - I had my wife drop us off at Wishon, and my friend had his son pick us up at Roads End. It's nice to live close to the trailheads.
The first part of the trail, from Rancheria to Crown Valley, is a popular horse trail and is easy to follow. It is well chewed up by the stock hooves, and very dusty. As soon as we passed Crown Valley, the trail dwindled to a narrow track that was hard to follow at times, with many deadfalls to go over and around. It is not laid out very well, as if a drunken sailor chose the route. It wanders up and down and around more than it should. The worst part is the drop into Tehipite. It is a 3500' drop on switchbacks that average about 30 degree slope. And they are covered with thick leaves and loose rocks most of the way. I spent the whole way down with the brakes on, which is tiring with a full pack. It is very narrow and unmaintained, with the occasional brush encroachment, and a couple places where we took the wrong turn. After a very short distance it became obvious that we were not longer on even the small unmaintained trail and we backtracked to find where the trail really went. And at the bottom it goes through some thick poison oak (good thing I am immune to that stuff, I was wearing shorts).
Once we were in Tehipite Valley, it improved some. The trail was still mostly unmaintained, but someone had been there this year with a chainsaw to cut out the deadfalls that were over the trail. It was relatively easy to follow, although there were some spots where we had to stop and look for the trail, and a few spots where we took a wrong turn. And again, it did a lot of up and down where it could have just as easily followed the contour. It is also apparent that the trail in Tehipite Valley was once maintained - there were occasional places where some old stone work was visible, so they obviously put some effort into building the trail at one time. I don't know how long it has been since they stopped maintaining it.
It was definitely physically challenging, the hardest trip I have done. I did a five day 41-mile loop from Horseshoe Meadow over Whitney with the scouts earlier this year, and an 8-day 65-mile trip from Horse Corral to Whitney (via Colby Pass) last year, and this one was harder. But it was definitely worth it.
By JMT standards, I was taking it easy with only 10.5 miles/day average. A lot of folks that I have met on the JMT over the years do 15-20 miles/day. That is a little too much for me, I like to enjoy the trip.
On our last night, in Paradise Valley, my friend and I pulled out our maps and started planning the big trip for next summer.
