2011 Thru Planning

[Hayduke_AZ]

I have nothing really new to share on this thread. I just need to share with someone that will understand, I want to start hiking now!!!

Maybe it's all the work I know is ahead of me before I can leave. It will all be worth it I know, but I'm really feeling like I want to be on the trail. Maybe it's all the training hikes I've been doing with a fully loaded pack. Whatever it is, I'm ready to go. Planning and preparations be damned! LOL

whew I feel a little bit better. Sorry about that. To make up for venting, here's a dancing banana!

[Railroad]

Gotta love the dancing banana

I just finished my first cut at an itinerary, and I have to say it has only increased my desire to be on the trail NOW...

I used the mileages and hiking rates in Ancient Brit's book as a rough guide, and came up with a 101 day schedule from Mexico to Canada. I need to drop 6 days from this schedule, so I'll be going back through it to find where I can find those opportunities to speed up or cut a resupply.

I'm averaging 5.8 days per resupply, and plan to have boxes in Warner Springs, Big Bear, Agua Dulce, Kennedy Meadows, VVR, Toulumne Meadows, Pooh Corner, Drakesbad Ranch, Castella, Callahan's Lodge, Crater Lake, Big Lake Youth Camp, Cascade Locks, Snoqualmie Pass, and Stehekin.

Thoughts? I've tried to keep my schedule relatively conservative to give myself a little leeway. I only hit 40 mpd once in OR according to this schedule, but the plan is for consistently putting in 30 mile days.

On trail in 94 days!

[Railroad]

Also, I make it to KM on the 14th, so snow levels will entirely dictate whether I can hold this schedule through the Sierras. I'm looking at low 20's for that section, but that is the section where I'll most likely be slowed down depending on the weather. Not much I can do to help that one except wait and see

[Colter]

Thoughts? I've tried to keep my schedule relatively conservative to give myself a little leeway. I only hit 40 mpd once in OR according to this schedule, but the plan is for consistently putting in 30 mile days...

Have you ever done a 30 mile day? How about a 40 mile day? Does your 30 mile average factor in the Sierras? Town stops? Hitching? Dealing with boxes that don't show up? Blisters? Swapping out gear? Deep snow? Laundry? Waiting until morning for creeks to recede? Waiting for the snow to soften so you can safely cross steep passes? I alluded to this before, but there is vast gulf between doing 30 miles a day mathematically and based on what you've heard other experienced hikers can do, and slogging those big miles day after day for months. You said you were a 5/10 on a fitness scale earlier. You'll have to be a 10/10 when you start to have a realistic chance to pull this off, and you'd better have the kinks worked out on your hiking style, pacing and gear. You also must be unusually tough mentally, and be lucky enough not to suffer any significant injuries.

Very few inexperienced thru-hikers, I would seriously guess in the neighborhood of 1%, could pull this off. Maybe 5% of experienced long-distance hikers would pull it off if they planned to, and most wouldn't care to tackle it. This will be really, really hard, physically AND mentally, and all but the most driven, physically fit people will say "this isn't worth it." You're going to have to seriously prepare physically otherwise you'll almost certainly beat yourself up enough right off the bat so you get so far behind the curve you can't make it up. It's completely your call, hike your own hike and all that. But just be prepared. Are you tougher than 99% of the people? Maybe you are.

Trust me, take that 9 day spring break and dedicate it to hiking. You are going to need that experience and that physical fitness. Skiing might be fun, but this summer there will be a ton of fun things to do, and you'll have time to do only one fun thing: walk fast! Is hiking 30 miles a day every day all summer something you will enjoy, or something you want to have done? If it's the latter, your whole goal will be Canada, and Canada will look a heck of a long way away when you're tired in the Sierras.

You mentioned in your first post that 20 mpd will take you to Oregon. That in itself is a big challenge, and anyone should be proud to have hiked the length of the California. You far more likely to pull that off, and if you're like most people you'd have a lot more fun on the trail.

I hope people don't take this as "nay-saying." It's not my hike, it's yours. I just think it's important to look at this thing realistically before you leave. Best of luck!

[BrianLe]

Agree with Colter. Certainly not impossible, but you're shooting for something that few experienced thru-hikers would attempt, averaging, what, 28 MPD? That's without neros or zeros, time off to resupply, no time to deal with injuries or illness or family issues or whatever.

So practically speaking I think you need to do significantly more than 30 MPD as a minimum *average* to make this schedule, including starting out/breaking in, and going through the Sierras.

Apologies if you have experience at doing decent length (in days/weeks) trips of over 30 MPD, but if not ...
I too would suggest that you not expect to finish in 95 days; great if it turns out that you can, but don't make unbreakable plans that require you to do that.

[Railroad]

Colter, you make some great points. I've tried my best to incorporate town stops and waiting at Sierra passes / high creeks into this itinerary, but you're very right that there are a ton of possible ways for me to lose time against this schedule. At the very least this gives me that #1 ultimate goal to shoot for IF everything works perfectly.

I definitely don't take any of this as nay-saying, because you bring up legitimate concerns, and its very important that I recognize all of those facts going in. I think my next cut at a schedule will take me through California or maybe to Crate Lake, and we'll see how that one looks. That way I have a couple options and I'm not stuck with one unbreakable plan as Gadget pointed out.

As far as spring break goes, I'm definitely putting in as many miles as I can. I'd like to go to Colorado and get some practice with an ice axe, but it'll be harder to find trails where I can put in those high mileage days due to snow or mud. I'd still be able to do comparable long hours, its just I wouldn't be going nearly as far each day. As an alternative I'm considering heading south, and perhaps doing a section of the AT near Harper's Ferry. Any thoughts on how critical it is to have ice axe practice vs high mileage practice?

[sbhikes]

Railroad, 30 mile days on average is a pretty aggressive goal. I'm not going to talk you out of that goal. After all, I'm an old lady (well, mid-40s) and fat but I managed 30 mile days or close to it from Northern California onward. But if it turns out you fall short, I hope you have a back-up goal. What I'm getting at is that some people quit the hike because they can't live up to some expectation they've set for themselves. If you have 95 days to hike the trail, then soak up every minute of those 95 days. In my opinion, the time out there is more important than the distance.

[BrianLe]

Ice axe vs. long mileage: There's no great answer here, ideally "both".

My first impulse, however, is "go for the long mileage days". This will help give you some sense of what might be possible in your schedule, but note that there's a difference between "starting out" vs. steady state after fully up to speed.
This could also help you confirm whether your footwear works well for you, figure out how to deal with blisters if any show up.

OTOH, it's pretty worthless carrying an axe without the head and the "muscle memory" knowledge of what to do in that split second of panic when you start to fall.
But it could turn out that conditions when you go through won't really require an axe; in June of 2008 I think most folks mailed theirs home (I eventually did). Whenever conditions seemed a little dicey I found that I nevertheless preferred to keep my trekking poles out.
I suppose that when you start walking into the Sierras you could try to find someone with experience to watch (with amusement) as you try a few practice self-arrests.

[Colter]

I managed 30 mile days or close to it from Northern California onward.

But I'm sure that must have been full days of hiking. I did lots of 30 miles days on the PCT, even a 40 mile day, and with everything included I did 17.3 miles a day. In Oregon and Washington I did 23 miles a day average including everything and I was usually doing 25-30 miles a day. There are many things that pull the average down.

I think it's important that people don't look at how many miles they can go on their best days then multiply that number by x number of days to determine how far they can go in a summer. It never works that way. Of course, you know that Piper, but I think it's important that new thruhikers know that, too.

By the way, have you ever heard of a lady called Piper's Mom? Super nice lady, she gave me a ride into town!

[Halfmile]

Railroad, last month I created this PCT hiker scheduling document based on analyzing trail journals from 2009 and 2010 hikers. You are planning a hike way faster than anything on these charts, but maybe they will be useful in anyway:

http://pctmap.net/pctdownloads/pct_hiker_schedule.pdf

Ancient Brit's schedules don't correspond that closely to the 2009 and 2010 hikers in southern CA and especially the Sierra. I don't think his schedules allow for zero days so maybe that explains the difference. But, at your pace I doubt you will be taking many zeros.

The fastest hiker I noticed who kept a trail journal was Graduate who did a 110 day hike in 2010. It's a pretty good read:

http://www.trailjournals.com/jclyde

FYI, I did not include him in my analysis since I considered him to be way faster than a "normal" PCT hiker.

-Halfmile
www.pctmap.net

[Colter]

You are a hero of the hiking world! The information you produce is invaluable.

[sbhikes]

By the way, have you ever heard of a lady called Piper's Mom? Super nice lady, she gave me a ride into town!

If it wasn't for Piper's Mom, I would not be alive.

Yeah, my average was nowhere near 30mpd. I took a lot of zeros. I also couldn't do more than two 30 mile days in a row before I needed to rest. But I could do 25 mile days day after day after day.

[Hayduke_AZ]

@Railroad

I think you should take Diane's advice to heart. Instead of trying to squeeze a complete thru into your available time, why not just enjoy as much of the trail as you can?

I am planning so that my PCT thru hike will be something I look back on fondly. I'm afraid you will look back on what you're planning as an ordeal you survived. I can't help but think of a quote from Edward Abbey. "Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube. There are some things one would rather have done than do.”

Good luck. Hopefully I'm starting in front of you and get to meet you as you zoom passed me

[Malto]

Halfmile,
The fastest that I know of was Hummingbird, I believe it was 95 days. Her VERY brief trailjournal is on Postholer. If you read through that you will find that she is not your typical thruhiker. She is a long distance runner and seems to enjoy pain.

Railroad,
I am planning a very similiar schedule as yours. I have in very serious training for a year and half and have done up to 48 miles in a day. If you haven't done say a 40 miler or back to back 30+ with high elevation gain I would highly recommend that you do it prior to starting. If I had a week between now and departure I would attempt to duplicate the pace of your PCT trip For perspective, if you average 30mpd starting out then your average elevation gain will 7300' over the first 20 days. (Using halfmile's data)

I would question the wisdom of having a 5.8 day resupply. You will need to carry about 2lb of food per day to consume enough calories for this mileage. That will be over 11 lb. max carry starting out in food with an average food carry of 5.8lb. By contrast my average carry will be 3.2 days giving me a average max of 6.4# and an average carry of 3.2lb. Also, for this speed I hope your base weight is really low. Weight will kill you mileage

All of us have have a plan B. We can all stop the trip at any point and pick it up later. Would it be a failure to stop after 2000 miles if you totally enjoyed the experience? I don't think so. All that you can do is get your body and mind into top shape so that you can meet your objective. You can't control weather, injury (to some extent) or snow levels in the Sierra. But you can control your ability to step from the border and knock out the needed miles without being miserable in the process.

Finally at the risk of getting flamed. There are very few hikers that have done the PCT in 100 days or less because they either don't have the desire or the ability. But there are folks out there that have done it and you can learn much from reading their journals or better yet talking with them. You won't find many of these folks on this website. You are talking a much different hike than they completed.

[Highway Man]

Railroad, last month I created this PCT hiker scheduling document based on analyzing trail journals from 2009 and 2010 hikers. You are planning a hike way faster than anything on these charts, but maybe they will be useful in anyway:

http://pctmap.net/pctdownloads/pct_hiker_schedule.pdf

Ancient Brit's schedules don't correspond that closely to the 2009 and 2010 hikers in southern CA and especially the Sierra. I don't think his schedules allow for zero days so maybe that explains the difference. But, at your pace I doubt you will be taking many zeros.

The fastest hiker I noticed who kept a trail journal was Graduate who did a 110 day hike in 2010. It's a pretty good read:

http://www.trailjournals.com/jclyde

FYI, I did not include him in my analysis since I considered him to be way faster than a "normal" PCT hiker.

-Halfmile
www.pctmap.net

Very good, Halfmile, I saved the file to my computer.
I used the similar thing from Jack Tarlin for my AT thru as a hiking progress control. I recall I looked at that one often at the first a couple of months, and was assured of confidence to complete the whole trail by the time as initially projected.
Thank you again for giving out this useful tool. Should I get out on PCT this year? Hmm....

[Railroad]

Halfmile, thank you so much for the link to Graduate's journal! I'd looked around, but the fastest I had found were a couple 120 day trips. I just finished reading through it and it gives me a better perspective on the daily mileage, and its cool to be able to compare his daily mileages with this tentative plan. I realize I was probably a little too optimistic about the Sierras, but perhaps didn't really account for how much my endurance will improve by the time I reach Oregon / Washington. I've also assumed some pretty quick resupply stops, so I'll go back and figure in a few extra hours at each stop.

As a sidenote, I've used Ancient Brit's mileage's and paces on each section, but not the schedules from the appendix. This was to give me an idea of how tough each section would be so that I'd get X miles in 8 hours, or 2X miles in 8 hours.

I have to say, I absolutely adore the hiking community, because when someone comes and talks about something different or unusual, you are all amazingly receptive, and instead of attacking or nay-saying, you all have helpful and insightful commentary that will definitely improve my planning and preparation. If nothing else, I realize I've found an amazing group of people, and I hope to have the opportunity to see all of you out on the trail this summer!

As of now I think I'm setting three goals for this summer. The order of importance goes from 1 to 3. This way I always have something to shoot for, easy, moderate, and challenging.
1) Have an amazing 95 day trip on the trail
2) Hike through California
3) Hike to the Canadian border

Might go with a split spring break - 3 days in Rocky Mountain National Park learning to use an ice axe and practicing trail finding in snow, then 5 days of long hikes to develop endurance for the long mileage. I'll mix in a few more weekend hikes in the month leading up to my departure. I'll shoot for a couple 30's if I can during that period. I'm trying to give myself a slightly slower start, so I'm averaging 24mpd over the first two weeks to give myself some time to transition into things.

gg-man, I guess the resupply strategy is still being developed. I wanted to avoid long hitchhikes to save time, so I picked locations that I could easily send a mail drop. There are definitely opportunities to swing by a town, grab a couple days of food, and head back out. Cajon Pass is one place that comes to mind where I'll probably grab lunch and could pick up snacks for the trip to Agua Dulce, saving weight leading up to that stop. 5.8 days between mail drops would be more accurate.

Its looking like a 12-14 lb base weight right now, but I'm looking to trim a bit off that once I go on my shakeout hikes. That is lightyears ahead of where I was 6 months ago when I went for a 4 day hike with a 47 pound pack. It will be pure joy to swap out the ancient 9lb pup tent for the 2lb tarptent.

Sounds like its time for me to dive back into the planning stage to figure out how to incorporate these new thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. First things first though - its time to get caught up on this backlog of homework

[Colter]

I'll mix in a few more weekend hikes in the month leading up to my departure. I'll shoot for a couple 30's if I can during that period.

I have in very serious training for a year and half and have done up to 48 miles in a day.

With all due respect, this is the difference between someone with a real chance of completing a hike this fast and someone who doesn't. For extremely fast hikes over several months a person needs extremely good genes and/or needs to work very, very hard to be in peak condition before the hike.

Right now you are planning to start out way behind the curve, hiking 24 miles a day for two weeks. If you need to average nearly 30 miles a day, you will already be behind schedule about 2 1/2 days at the end of two weeks. You don't have time to get in shape on the trail for a hike this fast. Apparently Hummingbird hiked the trail in 95 days last year. Read what Freebird said about her in his journal: she definitely has what it takes to set records: extreme determination, lack of fear, willingness to endure long term severe suffering & deprivations, and a bit of lunacy. (my underlining) She is also a world-class athlete.

If your number one dream is to pull off a 95 day thru-hike of the PCT, you need to do more physical preparation. A lot more. Right now you're delaying the pain by not training hard, and you plan to delay the pain some more on the first 2 weeks of your hike. The trail won't cut you any slack. There's no way you can know what you're getting into because you've never done a hike of even a few days at the speed you're proposing.

To paraphrase Edison: Thru-hiking is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. You've got the inspiration down, and good for you for dreaming. But you need to start sweating hard now if you want a chance to live out your dream.

Again, I hope you don't take this as naysaying. Being better prepared both physically and with a better skill-set derived from at least one week-long fast hike will dramatically improve your odds of success.

[Hayduke_AZ]

Should I get out on PCT this year? Hmm....

Is that even a question?

I have to say, I absolutely adore the hiking community, because when someone comes and talks about something different or unusual, you are all amazingly receptive, and instead of attacking or nay-saying, you all have helpful and insightful commentary that will definitely improve my planning and preparation. If nothing else, I realize I've found an amazing group of people, and I hope to have the opportunity to see all of you out on the trail this summer!

I'd like to express my appreciation for your reaction. You could have easily reacted to many of the responses negatively. Instead you saw that this community wants to help, and took their advice to heart. I'll admit I was worried about your hike, but now I'm certain you will have a great summer. I'll be sure to wave to you as you zoom past me. I'll be the guy stopping every mile to take pictures. Hopefully you won't leave too big a dust cloud in your wake and make my photos hazy!

[Malto]

Railroad,
My resupply plan avoided hard to get to places. I was able to add in several easy stops by doing a combination of buy and ship. I am sure that there is a better plan out there but you can see my stops and the days between stops for a 30mpd hike at postholer, trailname Malto. You can probably pick up a couple of easy stops.

[sbhikes]

Perhaps you could attend Ned's snow course for ice axe training instead of the Rocky Mountains. I think he does it on or near the PCT. You could knock out a few PCT miles then and increase your odds.
http://hikethru.com/hiking-informati...dule-2009-2010