Kurt Achtenhagen reported doing the JMT southbound, unsupported in 3d23h11m from Yosemite to Mt Whitney (4d8h12m to the Portal), September 8-12, 2014. However, with the official JMT route closed in the area of Little Yosemite Valley due to a fire, Achtenhagen chose to take a alternate route from the Valley to Tuolumne Meadows. He "traveled from Happy Isles up the Snow Creek Falls Trail, past Olmsted Point and Tenaya Lake before reconnecting with the JMT in Tuolumne." Actenhagen's route is of roughly equal mileage to the JMT route, but does add a significant variance from the official route, and equates to roughly 10% of the entire distance, so we do not consider his trip an FKT for the "official" route.
Achtenhagen posted (but never followed up with details):
Throwing my name in the hat here, and I would like to claim the southbound unsupported record, with an asterisk - as Little Yosemite Valley was on fire, I traveled from Happy Isles up the Snow Creek Falls Trail, past Olmsted Point and Tenaya Lake before reconnecting with the JMT in Tuolumne. I believe this route is equal in mileage, and hopefully the difference in overall time negates any questions on route similarity.
Starting Monday September 8th at 2:00 am
Summit – 3 days, 23 hours, 11 minutes
Whitney Portal – 4 days, 8 hours, 12 minutes
Spot track can be found here: share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0g4qBRihbG6h0a4dXGcty2gl3x8PMacG4 [data no longer available]
More details to follow…
Comments
Trip report from 2014 can be found here: https://lnt.org/blog/trip-report-speed-attempt-john-muir-trail