<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16608" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"
bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=role_document
face=Arial color=#000000 size=3>
<DIV>
<DIV>I'll try to use AT Trail Days as an example. It's held the week after
Mothers Day and is 450 miles from the start or about 6 weeks hiking on that
trail. Take a guess what, traditionally was/is the biggest starting
day is? April 1st. It's not because of Trail Days. The Trail
Days date was choosen because that's when most hikers arrived at Damascus.
Of course, as the number of starters grew, people wanted to spread out, so now
they start earlier and earlier and get back to Trail Days. Now, there's
not one huge herd but several with most hikers starting on or around 3/1, 3/17
and 3/21 along with 4/1. Each of these "herds" is about the same size of
the PCT herd.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Now say the KO was moved to Wrightwood or Kennedy Meadows
or wherever. In order for it to be successful, you'd need to pick a date
when most of the hikers would be arriving. This date would be an average
from when most people start the trail. That date would be towards the last
weekend of April if only not to arrive in the Sierras too soon. Back to
square one. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Even with quotas, of say 10-15 per day leaving Campo spread out over a 30
day period, the herd would still bunch up in towns. The towns, PO, stores,
hostels, motels on the AT deal with 1000's of hikers, packages,
requests. Certainly the west coast should be able to deal with 300.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Sly</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 2/27/2008 12:54:33 PM Eastern Standard Time,
dsaufley@sprynet.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 10px; MARGIN-LEFT: 10px">
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>Moving the ADZ to much later in the season and further up<BR>the trail
would not make the event any less special. I propose that it<BR>become
AZD for annual zero day. <BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2> Personally, I think hikers who make it into the<BR>Sierra deserve
a party and a free meal more than the starters do. They've<BR>earned it,
whereas a third of the starters don't make it that far.<BR><BR>If you can come
up with a better solution than that, I'm all ears.
</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Delicious ideas to please the pickiest eaters. <A title="http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598" href="http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598" target="_blank">Watch the video on AOL Living.</A></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>