The Ultra Experience

Here's to the adventures of my life which are usually ultra marathon trail running or fly fishing but may include other trips, experiences, thoughts, opinions, or pretty much whatever I want. As co-founder of Altra Footwear my life and adventures seemingly revolve more around developing and promoting the best footwear in the world...and I love it!

Monday, July 14, 2008

John Muir Trail Preparation

Argued as the most beautiful trail in America the John Muir Trail runs from Yosemite National Park, through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and finishes atop the highest mountain on the continental United States, Mount Whitney 14,505 ft. It's length is approximately 225 miles.

Over the winter I was approached by a friend to fastpack this amazing trail in a mere 10 days. I jumped at the idea and have been preparing ever since. The original group all bailed out on me but I ended up convincing long time friend and runner Golden Harper to come and do it with me. We are now 10 days away from the trip and locking down our final preparations. We have also decided to attempt it in 9 days. Pack weight is slowly getting whittled down and we are hoping that our packs will weigh between 20-22 lbs for the majority of the trip. We will have only one resupply point at Muir Ranch which is approximately half way.

More information later to come, and no I am not a Karl Meltzer copy-cat. Remember last year I fastpacked the Uintah Highline Trail long before Karl started publicizing his AT journey, and I have been an avid backpacker most of my life. But great minds do think alike! I am hugely excited for this challenge and it should be tons of fun.

Also a huge thanks to our sponsors on this trip: GOLITE and RUNNER'S CORNER

2 comments:

John Penner said...

sponsors? How do you get sponsors for your "hobbies"? Or do you test equipment for them?

Brian Beckstead said...

John,

All of my sponsors have been contacts from working in the retail world. If I use their product then I can easily sell their product. Usually they ask for product feedback as well, so you could qualify me as a tester. Hence by both selling and testing the products it's easier for me to get sponsors.

Also, I'm a relatively harse critic and hopefully I have a respected perspective on items. Maybe I'm just lucky!?