[pct-l] Lost time, poor planning - is UL so great?

[Ned Tibbits]

My question is:  Why wait until the journey starts to figure out what you 
like or what works for you?  Adjustments during the adventure = wasted trail 
time. Hiking up and down lateral trails on the eastern escarpment of the 
Sierra to spend time in towns figuring out my food needs instead of staying 
on-trail sounds counter-productive to the intent of hiking a National Scenic 
Trail, Mexico To Canada, especially when I could have figured it out before 
by taking a few long-ish summer and winter hikes. That's Planning and 
Preparation.

I'm sorry, I still don't get it....

Why hike as fast as possible risking injury and enduring misery for a few 
days only to veer off on a lateral route to a trailhead down 2,000 feet to 
hope to hitch a ride to a town farther away to hope to find a place to 
sleep, eat, and wash up (recover) to hope to find a market that might have 
acceptable foods you can carry back up the 2,000 vertical feet - if you can 
hitch a ride to the trailhead - so you can get back on the trail and do this 
cycle all over again in a few days!

What a waste of time!!  To each his own.  If this is the "Modern Method" of 
hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, I don't buy it.  Just because it is the 
acceptable standard logically encouraged by the number-crunching crowd 
doesn't mean it is the only way to do it. Take the time before your trip to 
get to know yourself well enough to decide if this technique of hiking will 
work for all your needs. Obviously, I don't embrace the Ultralight Bible. 
Hiking as light as possible is excellent, but don't sacrifice health, 
safety, and enjoyment to say you had the lightest pack. Light is good and 
works for most people; ultralight is risky and may not work for you. How far 
toward Ultralight do you go?  Try it on training trips and see if you can 
stand the sacrifices to attain it, then decide what you want to do. There 
are other ways to enjoy a hike.

Don't go into this adventure-of-a-lifetime blindly accepting what seams to 
be good for everyone else only to find it doesn't work for you and you 
suddenly find yourself in the middle of the mountains in a foreign state! 
No wonder so many people don't complete this hike! Talk about 
disillusioning!

If UL means I have to carry as little food as I can (requiring me to leave 
the trail frequently) and to hike as far and as fast as I can to cover more 
distance so the trip takes up less time costing me less, then, to me, this 
style of hiking is dictated by time and money.  Have we lost sight of why we 
originally liked spending time in wilderness?

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alden Dale" <alden at cedar-creek.com>
To: <Pct-l at backcountry.net>
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 12:12 PM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Question about food


I agree with Donna. I started out this last summer, and I had to
force myself to eat even 1000-1500 calories per day. I just wasn't
hungry. But for me, about a week or two into it, I really started
picking up momentum, and after about a month I was taking about 5,000
per day, doing 30's.

Just be flexible. Thats the beauty to buying most of your food along
the way instead of doing mail drops. You'll find how much you eat and
what you like to eat.

This last summer I found I love tortillas. I normally hate them, but
for some reason when I'm hiking I found they're awesome, and I
started downing up to 8 a day.

Also, I found in the colder weather, my calorie intake rose a lot. I
had some 30° days through the sierras, and the nights were down to
15° ish. During those times, I found I was eating about a third again
as much (and much more at night, I was waking up four or five times a
night to eat.)

So- be flexible. You'll learn pretty quickly how much you need. The
time until the first couple resupplies won't be too bad though-
almost everyone (that I've talked to, including myself) overpacks for
the first leg.

Good Luck

alden


On Dec 10, 2007, at 11:25 AM, Scott Bryce wrote:

> It is estimated that a through hiker burns about 6000 calories per day
> on his hike. Do you carry enough food to consume 6000 calories per
> day,
> or do you carry less, and make up the difference during town stops?
>
> I know the answer is different for every hiker, but I am interested in
> getting a rough idea how many ounces/calories per day a typical
> through
> hiker carries.
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