[pct-l] Artificial concern for hikers dealing with snow and water

[Eric Lee]

Scott wrote:
>
Encouraging hikers by deed or word to march blithely off into hundreds of
miles snow clogged forests is unacceptable.
>

Despite this fine debate, the reality is that not many hikers substantially
change their plans in response to our yammering on the list anyway.
Tomorrow I'm driving a would-be thru-hiker up to the North Cascades to begin
a south-bound hike.  I told him twice that the North Cascades aren't
passible right now in any reasonable amount of time.  Knowing what we know
now, if he wants to complete a thru-hike this year his only realistic option
is to start at Old Station, go north to the border, then flip south to
Campo.  He demurred, saying this is the way he wants to do it.  Well, ok,
I'll give him a ride, then.  I'm a big believer in personal responsibility.
I did advise him to carry enough food to allow for a 10-mile-a-day pace.
:-)

As I've written before, at the end of the day all we can do is put out a
wide range of advice and options and let people make their own decisions.  I
believe everyone here is offering advice in good faith.  Personally, if I
were a thru-hiker in March of this this year, the first thing I'd do is see
if I could do my hike next year instead.  If that weren't possible, I'd go
ahead and start in about mid-April and do my level best with what the trail
gave me.  I still think that would be the best plan for me, even after
reading everyone's trail journals this year.  I still think that from a
perspective in March it was the best plan for anyone who's highest priority
is to *complete* a thru-hike in one year.  I also think, with the additional
knowledge that July brings, that some variety of flip-flopping is probably
the best strategy at this point.

Yes, slogging through snow-choked forest sucks.  But giving up on a
one-in-a-lifetime shot at doing a complete thru-hike sucks worse, for many
people.  For those people the best advice is always going to be, "Try it and
see what happens.  Make good choices, but don't stop unless you're forced to
stop.  Don't stop based on rumor or conjecture.  Go see for yourself.  Just
remember it's not worth your life."

Eric