Hallucinations, a Broken Pack, and a JMT Record

<p>The John Muir Trail is back in the FKT spotlight, so I dug up the story of one of the wildest things I have ever done.</p><p>In 2022, I started in Yosemite carrying everything I would need to cover 223 miles unsupported and chase the John Muir Trail record. Over the next three days, I peed brown, stopped eating enough, hallucinated a safari guide, broke both straps on my backpack, fell asleep while moving, and woke up face-down on the trail.</p><p>With the record slipping away, I took a 12-minute nap, climbed Mount Whitney through the night, and ran the final switchbacks hard enough that stopping to pee was no longer an option.</p><p>I finished in 3 days, 47 minutes, and 56 seconds—breaking the record by less than 13 minutes.</p><p>This is the full story of the highs, lows, questionable decisions, and tiny mental tricks that somehow got me to Whitney Portal in time.</p>