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<DIV>Good afternoon, Moondog,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You should watch the various Sierra snow level reports and be guided
accordingly. This year was a very low snow year and the passes were
relatively easy to cross. 90% of the people I encountered were wearing
sneakers. The only regular boots that I can remember were on a few
south-bound JMT hikers. I encountered few posthole situations, and
that was mostly on the backside, i.e. north side, of several passes. Boots
and crampons really wouldn't be of any help when postholing, except in a few
instanced there was some risk of stepping out of a low shoe, at which point I
would have had to stop and dig it out. I didn't see any crampons,
and only once did I wish I had mine. When I do use crampons, I
use the instep variety which fit and function well on my sneakers.
Even though the crampons would have been handy, in hindsight, I would not carry
then on another passage of the same conditions. Similarly, I did not
carry an ice axe either. The following link refers to the only time I
wished I had had either of them. <FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=188368">http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=188368</A> </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Steel-Eye</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> </FONT>----- Original Message -----
</DIV>
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style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=davidalexanderstewart@gmail.com
href="mailto:davidalexanderstewart@gmail.com">David Stewart</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=pct-l@backcountry.net
href="mailto:pct-l@backcountry.net">pct-l@backcountry.net</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, November 26, 2007 1:11
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [pct-l] crampons?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>hello all, </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>1) thank you all tons for the great feedback. I wish i could give it
back, but being a PCT rookie....</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>2) the following question might come off as a lil' bit nuts...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>3) starting on the zero-day kickoff ....will I need crampons in the
sierras? I am not going to carry an ice ax, because I have no idea what to do
with that, how to self arrest, etc... are crampons needed? it seems extra nuts
that i am going to do this trail in new balances...can sneakers handle the
high sierra? </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>thank you all again, </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>-moondog</DIV>
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