Might have to board my pup for a week or two to do some big miles.
Just carry it on your back, im sure it weighs less than 100 pounds, you could rig up something im sure.Originally Posted by Wooobie
Tell me whats really wrong ImAfraidOfBears.
Ask a question, you'll get some answers, some you may like, others you may not, some may offend delicate sensibilities. However, you got what you wanted overall, whining about it won't change the results I'm afraid.
To the center of your claimed question, yes there are some things one should be concerned about along the PCT for those with or without health issues. Planning for these concerns allows one to prepare for them. Conversely, not planning can provide opportunities for new experiences in adversity management as. It appears you are in the latter camp but either way you decide to tackle it, enjoy your trek!
The thing is about "danger hype". So you got answers from folks that have actually BTDT. Sorry if you didn't like the tone of their replies, but along with free advice(that you sought) you get some extraneous irrelevant info. Just like IRL.
Traveler gets very close to the point I am about to make. Only you get to decide what the dangers are. You get information and you process the information. It is the processing of the information that will decide whether YOU think something is a danger. So, humping a 100 pound pack in world-record heat for days on end as a work-related experience enters into the danger equation by muting anyone's concerns about the desert crossing. Same with experience in BUD/S school. Everyone filters information through their life's lenses before processing the information. Folks here have told you where, from their actual experience, to be cautious and realistic. Whether you take their information and utilize it is up to your individual processing system. Super strong, water resistant, temperature hardy S.E.A.L. will discount the hazards of the stream crossings and post-holing.
In all reality though, nobody who has been through BUD/S or been in a firefight in Afghanistan would consider any of the "dangers" of the PCT to be any "danger" at all. And, neither would be concerned enough to ask about it on an internet forum...and in my experience S.E.A.L.'s are uber quiet about themselves to the public...the don't go ID'ing themselves and they don't go around bragging about BUD/S on a hiking forum on the internet. Well, maybe Dick Marcinko...but he gets a pass....
YMMV
Thus the skepticism of many on this thread...myself included...
It's a pretty consistent theme, on any "hiking" forum like this, that open ended questions about difficulty turn into a penis-measuring contest.
But, you can actually measure a penis...and I'm betting.....yeah.....just sayin....
Well i dont follow this forum like its my life and i dont have over 1000 posts. I just assumed people would be nice like the trail community is. Guess not.
It's SEAL, not S.E.A.L, even though it's an acronym. And you are wrong about the quiet professional part. Many are, but it takes nothing but turning on a TV and seeing a former SEAL on Fox or CNN to know that is not true. Every single damn one wears either a SEAL lapel or a SEAL hat that screams "I WAS A SEAL! I WAS A SEAL! LOOK AT ME!". Now none of them at all talks about combat or anything like that, but a lot (again not all) love to tell everyone in the world they were a SEAL. Case in point Jess Ventura or Ryan Zinke. Have you ever seen those guys without a SEAL hat or SEAL lapel? No. Not once. Yes many SEALs are quiet professionals but a whole ****load have this strange teenage male complex going on that never leaves them.
And don't bring up Richard Marcinko. He's a douche. He was not even allowed on base when I was at BUD/S. Master Chief Dennis Chalker who was the command Master Chief at BUD/S when I was there is good friends with Dick but Captain Joseph Maguire who was the CO of BUD/S when I was there refused to let the douche on base. And Dick knows dick about SEALs anymore. The shooter who shot Bin Laden even said so. He said he was "woefully uneducated was a modern day SEAL is like" after CBS had interviewed Dick prior to interviewing the shooter.
... Anyways, back to hiking.
i dont even know how navy seals got brought up
I was never a SEAL but I went to BUD/S and my two friends I swam with and grew up with on the same swim team in the NVSL are both SEALs on SEAL Team Six. One is an officer who commanded a unit on SEAL Team Six who is no longer on the team because officers just get swapped in and out of Team Six from the normal teams and they move up to do stupid administrative stuff, and the other is an enlisted guy who is a Senior Chief who has been on SEAL Team Six for 10 years now (the enlisted guys stay on until the end). We were all on the same relay team (freestylers). We were all serious Catholics. All swimmers. All upper-middle class. The officer grew up in a Navy family and his dad was an admiral and his older brother was a Force Recon Marine. The enlisted guy was just a good Catholic swimmer from a good family with no military ties until I corrupted him with books on how to make bombs and SEAL stuff and would take him paint balling with me. He ended up going to Seton Hall to get his college degree while he was a triathlete. After college he decided to enlist. I guess once he graduated BUD/S because our former team mate was commanding a SEAL Team Six unit at the time he was able to try out and join that unit. Haven't talked to either of them since I was 17. I just know what they are up to because our moms used to talk to each other. I was a Catholic swimmer with no military ties in my family. College sounded stupid so I graduated high school early and signed onto the Navy and the SEAL process on my 17th birthday. None of us were special. Just above average intel, above average fitness. Thats it.... Interestingly once the enlisted guy got on SEAL Team Six he vanished from the internet. Facebook gone, search results gone except for some swim meet records, and the internet put his age at 55 (he's 35).
This thread is a study in something. What exactly that is, I'm not sure.
"That's the thing about possum innards - they's just as good the second day." - Jed Clampett
I totally misunderstood what the poster meant by "brought up". Why can't we edit and delete on this site???
So Forester Pass I think is the main danger. I keep looking at that and it looks down right nasty with snow. A mountaineer might thinking nothing of it but I'm not a mountaineer and it looks sketchy iced.
I thought Mather was much tougher than Forester even with a partial fall down the chute. Mather was frankly one of the hairiest things I have ever willingly done mostly because of the time of day, early afternoon, that it was done. Forester was just a long climb straight up and then what is for most a tiptoe across the snow chute. The approach to Forester was incredibly sucky, constant postholing for hours.
enemy of unnecessary but innovative trail invention gadgetry
If you donate a few bucks to the site to keep the server running, you get the ability to edit.
"That's the thing about possum innards - they's just as good the second day." - Jed Clampett
It doesn't pass the sniff test...just sayin...
FFS, you start off by stating a very odd thing that explains little and begs many questions. Then you blather on and on and on and on about OTHER people in the service that you know...
Not. Buying. Any. Of. It.
Deflection---detected
Skepticism---confirmed
Poseur---identified
Something about the blathering seems....familiar.....
I hiked in a just under average year of 2009 where there was only about 400 thru-hikers that year. The incidents that stuck the most to me from that year was a helicoptor rescue from heatstroke before Lake Morena, some guys passing out drunk while night hiking between Aqua Dulce and the Andersan's, girl suffering from hypothermia in the Mojave after getting soaked because it never rains in the desert so no need for raingear/shelter but luckly some guys were nearby with a pickup truck who drove her out, a girl swept down stream in the Sierras (but it was a slightly below average year), another one that hit her SPOT device because it dared snow on her and her sandals in the Sierra after she almost decided to leave her thermals at KM, S&R found her in town eating because she later hit OK so they surely aren't looking for her. Person who suffered from acute high altitude sickness that was helicoptered out thanks to someone having a SPOT and using it correctly, A guy who slid down the mountainside near Sonora Pass and almost hit a boulder as he had sent his ice axe home at Yosemite since he obviously didn't need it anymore. Oh, forgot about the guy picking up rattlesnakes because it was funny seeing people's reactions. Crossing the Oregon border on the first day of California hunting season with hunters everywhere and then passing a lot of the hunters in southern Washington right on the trail, but at least it was bow season and the big guns weren't out yet. Made me glad I had an orange pack cover.
Deaths of hikers that I recall reading about over the years: death by heatstroke south of Lake Morena, death from getting lost and exposure near Idyllwild in a big snow year (body wasn't found for 2 years), a non-PCT hiker death off Fuller Ridge from sliding in the snow (body found a few years latter), death by falling off the trail with a near straight drop down near Deep Creek, death by exposure near Liebre Mtn in the San Gabriels (was never sure if this was a thru-hiker), death by car hit when road walking along Hwy 138, some non-PCT hikers being killed after being swept away in a creek along the JMT. Several stories about PCT hikers being swept downstream, though they seem to get saved somehow. This seems to happen mostly to smaller women since they are too light to keep their feet down against the current. Don't carry their packs across for them! They need all the weight they can get. I recall 3 times people were awaken by Sierra bears pulling their food sack out from under their head or feet, though that was in the early 2000's before everyone carried bear cans like they should.
Despite all that, almost all hikers somehow survive hiking the PCT. The most dangerous thing today, despite the snow hype, is likely the road walks still in place in a few places. At least as long as people keep a healthy respect for the snow and its dangers.
Last edited by Miner; 02-12-2017 at 22:09.
the only real danger is exposure on the high peaks (if it gets cold and rainy and you aren't prepared) or getting lyme disease, or accidentally walking off a cliff because you weren't looking. Beyond that.. crossing any street is far more dangerous than hiking the trail.
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