Evolution of the JMT and SHR

ong before Theodore Solomons envisioned a continuous trail paralleling the granite crest of the Sierra Nevada while gazing eastward from the Central Valley lowlands in May of 1884, the range had been well-traveled by the Native Americans living on either side. The West Slope Miwok and the Eastern Sierra Paiute tribes had established trade routes utilizing the chinks in the armor that are the relative low spots in the otherwise unbroken and fortress-like wall of the Sierra Crest. These trans-Sierra routes were all east-west oriented, and likely created primarily out of pragmatic necessity. The north-south