Happy Isles or Bust, The John Muir Trail

The 2023 snow season deposited an extraordinary amount of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains. This created some extra problems for those of us who were attempting to hike the John Muir Trail. How would we handle the snow and ice that lasted well into Summer? Would the rivers and creeks be too swollen to cross? And, the big question of the year was how to deal with the badly damaged bridge over the South Fork of the San Joaquin River. This movie documents what we found on our Northbound John Muir Trail hike, starting on August 30, 2023. We hiked from Cottonwood Pass to Happy Isles, with a Mt. Whitney summit and three food resupplies along the way. It was quite an adventure.