[pct-l] Post to PCT-L : "Starting earlier than permit date"

[Brick Robbins]

You don't need a thru hiker permit to hike the PCT. If you did, then
how could someone hike a section of less than 500 miles?

There are a few places along the trail where you need a wilderness
permit, and the PCTA permit was created to make that easier to
coordinate. The PCTA permit quota restrictions have no legal basis,
but are simply attempt to help manage the crowd due to "Wild."

South of Kennedy Meadows (south), there are only only two places where
you need a permit

1)The Descanso Ranger district of the Cleveland National Forest
requires a super-secret (you will not find the requirement explicitly
mentioned anywhere on their website) "visitors permit" for "dispersed
camping." It is free, and there are no quotas. You just have to show
up at the ranger station and tell them you want one. You can probably
get one via a phone call and mail.

2) The San Jancinto Wilderness. There are two agencies there, The
State Park and the USFS.  Depending on where you are going you need a
permit for for just being in the wilderness area, not just for
camping, and depending on your route around the fire closure, you may
walk into San Jancinto where you can pick one up. If you walk around
on Black Mountain road. you won't need one at all.

Once you hit the Sierra, you will need a permit for several areas,
starting just north of Kennedy Meadows (south)

Soooo, you can be completely legal starting early, as long as you get
your Descanso "visitors permit"




2016-03-21 6:22 GMT-07:00 Brittney Dane <bdane0918 at gmail.com>:
> Subject: "Starting  earlier than permit date"
>
> "Before I start, I want reassure everyone that I don't plan on just
> disregarding my permit and starting whenever I want. I am trying to figure
> out an ethical workaround to this situation and I would absolutely love and
> appreciate some brainstorming. I wasn't able to plan my thruhike months in
> advance because I'm in one of those situations where within the last 2
> months so much has changed in my life that I could have never prepared for
> this opportunity beforehand. So by the time I realized I could actually
> hike the PCT this year, permits had already been open for weeks and all of
> April/earl May were gone.
>
> The start date I got is May 14th. I REALLY want to start at the beginning
> of May. I want to make it Canada, I want to have flexibility to take zeros
> when I need to, and I'm afraid that starting mid May will make me feel
> rushed. Does anyone, ANYONE, have some good ideas on how I can go about
> changing my start date without blowing off the permit system? So far I
> posted on the facebook group requesting a date switch with someone and I
> called the PCTA (they basically just said keep an eye on the permit
> calendar in case someone drops out).
>
> Does anyone have any other ideas/suggestions/enchantments that could get me
> on the trail earlier than Mid-May!?"
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