Silent Hiking 300 Miles on the John Muir Trail

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Hope you all enjoyed this film! This was the longest and most remote hike I've done so far. It was a beast to edit, taking me several weeks to complete. Before going on this hike, I never had a clear answer when people asked me 'what is your favorite hike?'. But after completing the JMT, I can say that the JMT is my favorite hike in the world. It has all the elements of a good trek – beautiful nature, remoteness, solitude and wilderness. What amazes me is that you can hike over 350 kilometer through the Sierras without crossing a single road or passing a single building. Especially if you realize that within a 350-kilometer radius over 40 million people live! That's conservation!

Here are some random facts and more chapter markers I thought you might enjoy:
0:56 Day 1 – Yosemite Valley & Half Dome
2:08 It's rare to see the cables without people! The secret: go just before sunset.
3:27 RightOnTrek.com was so nice to provide me with a bunch of meals for this trip! However, I mistakenly assumed I could eat them out of the bag, they are best enjoyed and ready faster after cooking in a pot.
3:40 Day 2 – Sunrise Meadows & Cathedral Lakes
5:09 Compare this shot, to to this one: https://youtu.be/rqkMiisWdEg?si=MJOUbM_0iKcwHm2d&t=420
5:22 Compare this campsite, to this one: https://youtu.be/rqkMiisWdEg?si=mcHKPqufOq09_LGV&t=669
6:28 Day 3 – Tuolumne Meadows & Lyell Canyon
7:18 This is a Belding Ground Squirrel. In late summer you only see the young adults under 2 years of age. The aldults are already in their wintersleep by then.
9:49 Day 4 – Donohue Pass & 1000 Island Lake
12:56 Day 5 – Alpine lakes & rain
14:46 I honestly enjoyed the rain, especially from a filmmaking standpoint: blue skies for 4 days is not very cinematic.
16:31 Day 6 – Devil's Postpile & Mammoth Lakes
18:36 Day 7 – John Muir Wilderness
18:38 This is officially not the JMT, but a (more beautiful) detour via Duck Pass merging with the JMT at Duck Lake.
19:32 Day 8 – Duck Pass, Lake Virginia & Tully Hole
23:03 Day 9 – Silver Pass & Bear Ridge
24:38 This was one of my favorite campsites on the JMT. I spotted it just down the trail when taking a short brake in the afternoon. When I saw it, I couldn't keep going, so I decided to make it a very short day and enjoy the beauty of this campsite.
26:41 Day 10 – Marie Lake, Seldon Pass, Muir Trail Ranch & Blaney Hot Springs
30:44 Day 11 – Sequoia National Park
31:52 This is Scott, a good friend of mine and the 'Sierra Expert'. Check out his work on https://www.youtube.com/@Sheety33.
32:45 Day 12 – Goddard Canyon, Evolution Valley & Wanda Lake
35:23 This is Wanda Lake just below Muir's pass, named after John Muir's daughter. The lake on the other side of the pass (38:10) is named after his other daughter: Helen.
36:33 Day 13 – Muir Pass, Le Conte Valley, Bishop Pass & Bishop
37:24 The Muir Hut on Muir Pass is the only pass hut on the JMT.
41:28 Day 15 – Bishop Lake & snow
42:46 I'm layering 2 quilts together here. A synethic quilt below with a down quilt on top. The best way to stay warm at -7ºC (19ºF).
44:12 Day 16 – Bishop Pass, Golden Staircase & Palaside Lakes
45:15 #TeamShorts
46:33 Compare this shot with 39:21.
47:21 This is the Golden Staircase — a marvel of trail engineering characterized by its steep switchbacks through narrow canyons. This segment stands as the last part of the JMT to be completed, a full 22 years after the trail officially opened.
48:07 I'm packing up my tent again. While pitching my tent the wind started picking up to the point where my tent started collapsing. With only rocks to secure my tent and an exposed spot, I decided to move my tent to a more sheltered spot.
48:26 Day 17 – Mather Pass (3,396m, 11,138ft) & Pinchot Pass (3,422m, 11,226ft)
52:24 Day 18 – Rae Lakes & Glenn Pass
54:20 Seeing a helicopter in the Sierras is rare. They only fly for search and rescue operations, to drop supplies at ranger stations once a year and pick up trash from ranger stations once a year. The latter was the case here.
57:24 Day 19 – Forester Pass (4,009m, 13,153ft) & Bighorn Plateau
58:29 This is a pika. One of the only animals in the Sierras that doesn't hibernate. Instead, they collect grass and flowers during the summer (you see them often with a flower in their mouth – so cute) that they store under talus (large boulder fields). All winter they live under the talus with several meters of snow above them.
1:00:03 The descent from Forester Pass is quite an engineering marvel. The trail is blasted out of the granite and makes an almost impossible gentle way down to the valley floor.
1:00:40 This is a (dead) Foxtail Pine. A rare pine at only grow in California in Sequioa Kings Canyon National Parks and surrounding forests. On the JMT it's only seen south of Forester Pass.
1:02:40 Day 20 – Mount Whitney
1:05:30 You might recognize the last 2 songs from this film, they are identical as the last 2 songs from my Yosemite film. It was in Sierra Mountains where my backpacking adventures started, and that place holds a special place in my heart.
1:07:46 It was freezing cold. Just after sunset all the mosture on my quilts turned into ice crystals almost instantly (flash freezing). Temperatures dropped far below zero that night, but it was so worth being up there. Once in bed I stared at the night sky for over an hour before even attempting to sleep. There was a perfect silence, not a single breeze out there. And since I was alone, I can say I was the highest person in the contiguous USA that night (and most likely also in the all of North America). (;
1:08:11 Day 21 – Sunrise on Mount Whitney
1:09:51 What followed was a long 2,200m descent down to Whitney Portal via hundreds of switchbacks. A beautiful section, but I didn't film any of it. Mount Whitney is the official end of the JMT, so I wanted the film to end there, not at an anti-climaxal trailhead.

Thank you for the video. Greetings from Ukraine 🇺🇦 I really love hiking, and hopefully, after the war, I will be able to do such trips ❤

This guy likes his fried bean juice.

Once again, an amazing video. Like @casey-mac said: they keep getting better and better..but from day one, your videos stand out above all the others. thanks Harmen for bringing us the world trough your eyes.

Beautiful! Makes me want to put my boots on!

I like how you cross fade your audio (streams, wind, nature) between scenes instead of a jarring cut into the next one. I’m sure it takes extra effort to do that every time but it is a very nice touch. Thanks!

Cinematography goals here. Wow, im blown away. Just amazing shot after amazing shot. Thanks for taking us along. I've been to many of these places, This is the first video that I feel text me right back to them. I can almost smell the pine trees, Feel the texture of the dirt and pebbles under my feet. When i thought this video could not get better, you met up with the artist formerly known as Sheety33 (Scott 😂) I met scott at trail camp just below mount whitney in 2016. We recognized eachother off YouTube. Bravo, I hope this video gets millions and millions of views.

Amazing😊 It is not look real but real.

Breathtaking.

What a stunningly beautiful film, shot in some of the most spectacular terrain on Earth – one of my absolute favourite parts of the world. And a huge accomplishment, both athletically, and from a film perspective. Wow. Just wow!!!

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

Thank You For This Video!

It is a stunningly beautiful work of art. I have watched dozens of hiking/backpacking videos and I can say, without reservation, that this video constitutes proof positive that the JMT is the King of Trails. You did a masterful job! What a trail! What a hike!

Again, Thank You For This Video!

Subscribed.

Outstanding Sir! Thank you for sharing so much beauty with us!

Incredible work. I am no filmmaker but this was a cinematic journey with a tremendous effort. Few videos touched me and gave me such sense of wanderlust like this one – chapeaux!