[pct-l] Bear Cannisters

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

It is not true that 5 days is quite doable, at least not for  
everyone. If I'd continued on the trail and not left at Bishop Pass,  
it would have taken me at least 7 days to reach VVR from my last  
resupply which was at Lone Pine. I needed to do Lone Pine for various  
reasons. I needed to leave at Bishop Pass because I was running out  
of food and my shoes fell apart before I could get my replacements in  
VVR, among other reasons. The stop was not planned.

I had been doing 17-19 mile days, no longer capable of the 20+ days I  
had been doing before. A lot of the younger men out there can  
continue their 20+ days and throw in some side trips to climb the  
peaks and still have energy to play frisbee when they get to camp. I  
cannot seem to do that. I also did not know how much my appetite  
would increase. I lost a lot of weight during the 5 days I hiked  
between Lone Pine and Bishop Pass, which is remarkable for someone  
with as slow a metabolism as me.

Only a few years ago I was trundling up the Himalayas no problem and  
no weight loss. I'm not as strong as I once was and 700 miles of the  
repetitive stress that the Southern California PCT trail tread puts  
on your body didn't strengthen me for the journey at all.

Let me repeat, in case someone wants to scold my poor planning: I  
left the trail to take care of my needs. I didn't beg for anybody to  
save me. In fact, I gave some of my food away as I left to help out  
others who also didn't know it would take them as many days as it did  
and were low on food. People begging for food seemed to happen with  
regularity in that stretch of the trail.

6-7 days is what I'm packing for my next leg, which will stray from  
the PCT because a friend is joining me and we want to see some lakes  
and things not on the PCT. Since he hasn't been hiking the PCT, his  
abilities are a black box, although I suspect he can probably out- 
hike me.

Diane

On Jun 26, 2008, at 3:32 PM, Gary Wright wrote:
>
> On Jun 26, 2008, at 5:59 PM, Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes wrote:
>
>> I got hold of a large bear can and my food still doesn't fit. Just
>> like everybody else I know out there hiking the PCT right now. It's
>> the dirty little secret of the PCT.
>
> How many days are you trying to get in the canister?  Five days  
> should be quite doable and six if you are good at tetris. Five days  
> should be sufficient to cross any of the parts of the PCT that  
> require a canister.
>
> Radar