Mid-August in California's Sierra Nevada, and two John Muir Trail hikers are in suspiciously good spirits. Day six of their trek began in a cabin at Red's Meadow, a popular resupply and rest stop along the route, where breakfast was unhurried and a sign on the wall urged guests to "hug a horse and kiss a mule." The mules turned up within a hundred yards, gearing up for a pack trip, and the joke was complete before the day's hiking really started.
The day's main work was the long climb out of Red's Meadow, and the pair were feeling fresh enough to make it look easy — joking, singing and generally baffling fellow hikers. One group dubbed them "too chipper," which, frankly, is a decent problem to have on a 211-mile trail. Their mood is a useful reminder for anyone planning this route: a zero-ish night in a real bed at Red's Meadow can reset your legs and your head at exactly the right point in the first week.
The trail delivered its usual blend of scenery and silliness. The hikers crossed paths with Allison, a northbound walker nearing her finish at Red's Meadow, and enlisted her in a prank on her partner Luke, who was trailing a quarter mile behind. The less said about the message they relayed, the better — but it kept them giggling for a good while.
A practical milestone came at Lake Virginia, the trip's first water crossing where feet actually got wet. Compared with the previous year, when cold, soggy feet were a weeks-long misery, this one was a pleasure: a pair of Xero sandals handled the crossing, then doubled as recovery gear during an hour-long foot-soak stop at the lake's edge. Cheap trick, big payoff — camp sandals are worth the few ounces on any long Sierra hike.
The day closed with a short descent to Fish Creek, where they pitched camp just across the steel bridge. That puts them in classic JMT territory: this stretch between Red's Meadow and the next resupply point is all lake basins, granite and high meadows, and it's one of the more forgiving sections for easing into the trail's bigger climbs later on.
Why does a single diary entry matter? Because it shows what a JMT day actually feels like — not summit-epic every hour, but small pleasures stacked up: a bed, a mule joke, a warm-water foot soak, a campsite by a creek. For anyone eyeing the John Muir Trail, the real takeaways are simple. Book or plan a cabin stop at Red's Meadow to break up the first week, pack camp sandals for crossings and soaks, and expect mid-August conditions that reward an early start and a light heart. It's also a window into trail culture, where strangers swap jokes and names within minutes and everyone's essentially on the same slow-moving adventure. Hiking the JMT is a holiday that looks like hardship from the outside — and, if day six is anything to go by, feels like the opposite from within.
