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Essential Planning Resources for the High Sierra Trail

Essential Planning Resources for the High Sierra Trail

Essential Planning Resources for the High Sierra Trail

Backpacking the High Sierra Trail takes months of planning and preparation, but it’s also a lot of fun. Reviewing the maps, planning your itinerary, plotting your campsites and filling out your gear helps build the anticipation. Here are a few essential resources that will help make your thru-hike on the High Sierra Trail a success.

Plan & Go | High Sierra Trail guidebook  Tom Harrison Mineral King Map  Tom Harrison Mt Whitney High Country Map

A good guidebook can be a great start to your planning. Plan & Go | High Sierra Trail provides great details on how to get permits, how long it takes to hike, when to get a permit and the tricky transportation options. It’s available in both paperback and a Kindle version.

You should also get these two Tom Harrison maps:

The Tom Harrison maps are waterproof and durable, and provide mileage between junctions and major landmarks. Between these two maps, you’ve got what you need to hike the High Sierra Trail as well as plenty of interesting side trips.

Even though I carry a GPS device, a paper map never runs out of power and shows you a much bigger area, much faster. You should always have a paper map when you’re in the wilderness.

That being said, I highly recommend GaiaGPS. I use it on my iPhone–it’s also available for Android–and it’s indispensable. With GaiaGPS, you can download the GPX files for any of our hikes here on SoCalHiker–including the High Sierra Trail–and the associated maps for the area you are hiking. With your phone in Airplane Mode, the GPS will still track and GaiaGPS will show you exactly where you are and which direction you’re heading.

These are the planning and navigation resources that I recommend for thru-hiking the High Sierra Trail. If you’ve discovered other resources that you think should be included here, please leave a comment and let me know.

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