[pct-l] Prepared for weather

[Larry Hogue]

Diane, great post on the varied environments the PCT passes through in
Southern California. 
 
If you're hiking over Hauser Mountain when it's 80 degrees and thinking,
"this is a hot, dry desert," just try going for a hike in the Borrego
Badlands on the same day. What seem like sterile and abstract definitions of
"desert" and "not a desert" will suddenly become much more real and
immediate. And the shade provided by all those ribbonwoods and sugar bushes
and manzanitas on the PCT will suddenly seem luxurious. But if you've just
come from, let's say, western Oregon, it probably does feel just like a
"desert" in a loose sense.
 
How the human body experiences these differences is subjective. I remember
opining about how dry it was in Missoula MT, and all the natives of eastern
Montana said "wait a minute, this isn't dry, this is the banana belt of the
state." 
 
Larry Hogue
Author, All the Wild and Lonely Places: Journeys in a Desert Landscape
Working on a narrative guide to the PCT in the Peninsular Ranges (Section A
and half of B)