{"id":69610,"date":"2017-07-18T12:11:38","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T18:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-couple-tell-about-john-muir-trail-adventure\/"},"modified":"2017-07-18T18:11:38","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T18:11:38","slug":"mancos-couple-tell-about-john-muir-trail-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-couple-tell-about-john-muir-trail-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos couple tell about John Muir Trail adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Peter
Peter Robinson demonstrates some of the equipment he and his wife, Deb Gardner, brought on their monthlong backpacking trip in 2016.<\/span>Stephanie Alderton\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The latest presentation in Mancos Public Library\u2019s \u201cLife Is an Adventure\u201d series took the audience on a 210-mile journey through the Sierra Nevada.<\/p>\n

Mancos residents Peter Robinson and Deb Gardner \u2013 or \u201cPaco\u201d and \u201cDory,\u201d their trail nicknames \u2013 spoke to about 20 people about their 26-day backpacking trip through the John Muir Trail in California last year. They showed a slideshow of some of the more spectacular sights and answered questions about how to plan a successful backpacking trip. The free event was part of an ongoing lecture series hosted at the library.<\/p>\n

The couple spent much of their lecture talking about the beauty of the John Muir Trail, which passes through several national parks between Yosemite Valley and Mount Whitney.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of a lot of the trails around here that are old mining trails and whatnot \u2026 this trail was actually built with the purpose of recreation,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cOne of the amazing things about its 210-mile length is how well it\u2019s constructed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean the trail is easy, though. Robinson and Gardner described cold nights and grueling hikes throughout the trip, and said they both lost several pounds by the end. But both were experienced backpackers to begin with, and Robinson said they tried to keep things leisurely by trimming their pack weights down to about 20 pounds and limiting themselves to 10 miles of hiking per day.<\/p>\n

Prospective hikers need permits in order to hike the trail, and Robinson said they can be hard to acquire, but the trail was still crowded throughout the couple\u2019s trip. Robinson said hikers without wilderness experience have caused litter and other problems along some parts of the trail.<\/p>\n

After the slideshow, several audience members asked for advice about their own backpacking plans. Gardner and Robinson showed off some of the equipment that served them on the 2016 trip, such as a bear-proof sack, water filtration drops and inflatable pillows. They also mentioned some mistakes to avoid, like wearing only heavy boots, which can lead to blisters, or leaving too late in the year.<\/p>\n

The couple plan to return to the trail this August, although this time they\u2019ll start at Mount Whitney instead of Yosemite, as they did last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so beautiful,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cIt\u2019s an amazing place. It\u2019s iconic in so many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next free adult event at the library will be a workshop on \u201cStitching as Mark-Making,\u201d scheduled for Saturday, July 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Life Is an Adventure\u2019 series spotlights John Muir Trail<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13,638,83,1469],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-69610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-library-and-museum","tag-mancos","tag-travel-and-commuting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69610"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=69610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}