[pct-l] Thru-Hike, Explorer Style

[Eric Lee]

Eric wrote:
>
It's enough of a challenge to complete any long distance hike WITH resupply.
Doing the PCT with no resupply is a challenge for me and me alone for my own
reasons.
>

Exactly.  As long as you understand that, feel free to experiment to your
heart's content.  I'm sure it's possible for someone who's very experienced
to survive by foraging on the PCT.  I'm not at all sure it's possible to get
all the way from Mexico to Canada in one season while doing that, but if you
try I'll eagerly wait to hear how it turns out.  Either way it'll be an epic
story with lots of things to learn from.

As for your other questions - the most common start time is the end of April
but quite a few people start earlier that month, either to get ahead of the
crowd or to give themselves extra time to break in slowly on the trail.
However, the early folks often run into serious snow in the San Jacintos and
other mountain areas in southern California, well before the Sierra.  You
might think those aren't "real" mountains but don't be fooled - it can be
pretty dangerous to attempt those areas without proper gear while they're
still iced up.  The solution is either to have proper gear and the knowledge
to use it, or take alternate road walks that keep you out of the worst of
the steep, icy terrain, or just start your hike later in the year when you
won't have to deal with the snow so much.

The same goes for the Sierra.  If you hit them really early or in a
high-snow year then some traction and self-arrest gear is certainly a good
idea.  If you arrive later (say June 15th in a normal year) or a low-snow
year, you probably won't need that kind of gear.

Like the word "possible", the word "need" is pretty squishy.  If someone
waltzes through a steep, icy snow traverse and doesn't have any accidents
then clearly he didn't need snow gear.  Yay for him.  If someone else tries
it without gear and falls to his death, well . . . clearly that idiot did
need it.  Oops.  It's really easy to label things "need" or "don't need" in
hindsight.  It's not so easy to predict the future the same way.

But anyway - if you're doing a no-resupply hike you'll almost certainly want
to wait until the snow is mostly or entirely gone from the Sierra before you
enter,  otherwise you'll have 200 miles of nothing but snow, ice, and
granite to eat.  So no, you won't need snow gear.  If you do, your food
problems are almost certainly going to be bigger than your snow safety
problems.

Eric