Ticket to Ride
Monday, April 23, 2012 at 10:38PM A confession: Once I snuck onto a trail without a wilderness permit. I rationalized it this way: I labored in the park as a lowly seasonal. I had put in my time picking up trash and restoring trampled campgrounds. Besides, the permit office didn't open until the forsaken hour of eight, and I had to be on the trail by then. Even so, I knew it was an unforgivable offense. If caught, the backcountry ranger would make me hike out. All eleven miles. In the dark. With bears.
I wasn't caught after all but the memory resurfaced as I embarked on the confusing and often aggravating quest for a John Muir Trail permit. In case you don't know, this roughly 220 mile trail runs between Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks. Because everyone wants to hike it, there are trail quotas. Often the requirements can drive someone insane. Fax no more than six weeks exactly, but only between 5 pm and 7 am. Put down alternate trailheads. Cross fingers. After a week of rejection we finally called and were granted a permit. It felt like we had won the lottery.
There were times during this process when I feared for my sanity. After all, I live in the mountains. Here you fill out a permit at the trailhead and just go. No quotas, no faxing. I could map out a 220 mile hike in some of the wildest country around. In the end, though, I couldn't give up on my JMT dream. There's something magical about the national parks that makes you put up with mystifying rules and camping near others. As a seasonal, that magic kept me around long after what should have been my expiration date, still wearing the flat hat.
It's a magic that isn't really definable and who would want to, anyway? The best mysteries go unsolved. All I know is that I'm heading back to the Sierra. With a permit this time.
