Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Fast Hiking

Recently the San Diego Union Tribune published an article about Reinhold Metzger who earlier this summer completed the fastest known unassisted hike of the John Muir Trail in five days ten hours. That's pickin them up and putting them down. His pack weighed 22 pounds fully loaded when he started the hike and he averaged three hours of sleep per night. Oh, by the way, Mr. Metzger is 61 years old.

Someone posted a link to the article on another thread:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/20030929-9999_mz1s29outdor.html

From the article, a Whitney link:

"One of the scarier moments for Metzger on his trek actually happened the night he began it from the summit of Mt. Whitney. A fast-moving snowstorm trapped him and forced him to take shelter in the stone hut up there.

"His plan was to leave at midnight, but when he stepped out to see if he could find the trail, a whiteout caused him to get disoriented. Suddenly, he couldn't find his way back to the hut.

"After walking dangerously close to the edge of 300-to 500-foot ledges, Metzger finally found his route back to the hut.

"'It could have ended before I started,' he said with a hearty laugh."

I saw this in last Saturday's paper, too, and was amazed to read that once Metzger did a back and forth loop of the trail, 422 miles, in 14 days. But I was also curious about the actual terminus of the trail. I had always thought that most people thru-hiked the John Muir Trail from Happy Isles to Whitney Portal. Metzger started at Whitney summit and went to Yosemite Valley. Not that you have to hike it north to south, but I didn't realize the Portal wasn't the end/start, the summit was. Does that mean if you're going for time, you can get the summiting of Whitney done before you even start the clock? Not that I'm any less impressed.

The John Muir trail runs from Mt. Whitney (the summit), to Yosemite Valley. I'm not sure how you could have any record that was for the JMT, that did not stick exclusively to that exact trail.

I know the writer of the article (Ed Zieralski) personally and complimented him on it. I was thankful that he asked the question of whether or not one should stop and smell the flowers.

Read the article. Not sure if the photo was posted on www or not, I have my paper copy.

I also promised one way or the other I would get the writer into a lean-enough condition (not as lean as when he pitched minor leagues in Pennsylvania) to trudge to the summit hut.