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Day One - Paradise to Muir

We had hoped to get started early but by the time we registered at the ranger station and took care of other things, we ended up starting the hike at 9 am.

The trail to Camp Muir consists of two parts. The first part has a trail, paved in places, that takes you about 2 miles to the start of the snowfield. From that point, it's 2.5 miles and 2800 vertical feet to Camp Muir.

The total distance was 4.5 miles, with 5000 feet of elevation gain. It took us over 8 hours to do this hike, and we were in pain by the end of the hike. John had suggested early on that we use our day packs rather than our larger heavier camping packs. This was a good decision as it limited the amount of stuff we took. Instead of 90-pound packs, we ended up with more like 60-pound packs.

Once we arrived at Muir, we found an isolated camp site (well, isolated in the sense that there were no other tents within 100 feet of us). We had to do a little shovel work to make flat spots to fit our tents, but we soon had the tents erected and stoves going. Before dark, the clouds covered Camp Muir and snow started falling. We got about 1/4 inch of snow during the night.