[pct-l] New PCT Website!

[Pea Hicks]

Paul Mitchell wrote:
> Great work!  That's a really effective visualization tool.
> 
> I'm inclined to think it'd be a good idea to print out each section and
> bring it along!

while i agree that this is a wonderful visualization, the only thing 
that's still ultimately frustrating is that, since this graph is based 
on the data book points, there's still plenty of instances where there 
are hidden climbs not represented in the data. i love the data book for 
its conciseness, but every single day on the pct i had situations where 
i'd look at the data and think "oh yay, i've got an easy grade for the 
next 3 miles" only to find one or more hidden climbs embedded within 
that 3 miles with no data points to represent those elevation changes. 
now, you would be right to point out that it's my own fault for relying 
too heavily on the data book, especially after having learned this 
lesson every day for months on the trail, but somehow i STILL managed to 
be fooled by this up to the very last day.

just to pull one random example out of countless possible examples, have 
a look at oregon section e on bearcant's page. in between "horse lake 
trail" and "camelot lake," there's a very significant climb to koosah 
peak which takes you much higher before descending to camelot lake. for 
some reason this peak is not included in the data book- why, i have no 
clue. at any rate, if you just look at the graph generated by the data, 
you see a direct climb to camelot lake. but in reality, you're climbing 
up and over a significant mountain here.

here's a snip from my trailjournal:

********
There’s definitely an art to reading between the lines of the data. 
Basically, the higher the gradient (positive or negative) and/or the 
shorter the distance between two landmarks, the more reliable the 
gradient info will be. For instance, if you have two landmarks that are 
.2 miles apart, and the gradient is –5.4, it’s a pretty safe bet that 
you’ll have a moderately steep descent for .2 miles. BUT on the other 
hand, if the landmarks are 3.5 miles apart, and the gradient is listed 
as 1.2, this almost certainly DOES NOT mean you’ve got 3.5 miles of 
easy, smooth ascent! Such a thing is pretty rare on the PCT. Most likely 
there are one or more hidden climbs or descents in that 3.5 miles. The 
gradient column only reflects the net ascent between the two points.
********

what would be really great would be to have a truly continuous elevation 
graph of the entire trail, with the data points placed along it, so that 
you can see all the climbs/descents accurately. ideally it would be best 
to have such a graph at the bottom of every data book page, which would 
encompass all the data points on that page. i actually requested this 
for the next data book revision, but it's highly doubtful it will come 
to pass. it might have to be a diy project, using elevation profiles 
generated by topo mapping software...

girlscout