[pct-l] crampons

[Andrea Dinsmore]

April thru August would be better timing.

PCT MOM

On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 9:46 PM, Eric Lee (GAMES) <elee at microsoft.com> wrote:

> Razor blade wrote:
> >
> Hi - am planning to thru-hike the PCT between March - July. was wondering
> whether or not i would need crampons or if an ice-axe will be sufficient
> because the weight added by the needed footwear for crampon use will be
> quite a lot? Thanks
> >
>
> Are you talking about starting at the beginning of March and going all the
> way to Canada by the end of July?  If so, you're going to have winter
> mountaineering conditions for much of the trail.  There are multiple
> mountain ranges in southern California that are challenging in the winter,
> and then I guess you'd have to hit the Sierra somewhere around the middle of
> April where everything from that point onward to Canada is still under snow.
>
> I think, given that itinerary, you should be planning on having expertise
> in the use of skies, snowshoes, ice axes, crampons, and other winter gear.
>  You should have experience with winter camping.  You should think hard
> about your resupply strategy since a lot of the stores, resorts, and roads
> thru-hikers typically rely on will be closed, plus your daily mileage will
> likely be a lot slower than normal.
>
> There have been other recent threads about conditions on the PCT in winter
> - you might look in the pct-l archives for more information.
>
> Eric
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