[pct-l] January Start?

[Eric Lee (GAMES)]

Jeff wrote:
>
Just wondering the
challenges would be with starting in January. If it's downright dangerous,
I'll reconsider.
>

Yes, it's dangerous.  This topic has been discussed a few times recently - you might try looking in the archives.  The summary version is that even in southern California, there are several mountain ranges that are buried in snow until April or early May.  Everything from the Sierra northward won't start melting out until the beginning of June.

Many resupply places and road crossings will be closed due to snow, plus your rate of travel will be slow.  In many locations you'll spend more time detouring to find supplies than you would spend making forward progress on the trail.

Winter mountaineering is inherently much more dangerous than summer backpacking and requires a lot of specialized knowledge, gear, and experience to avoid disaster.  You need to know about assessing avalanche hazards, surviving winter storms, and technical travel in deep snow and on hard ice.  You need to be confident enough in your skills to stake your life on them, because that's what you'll be doing.

That's not to say that it's impossible.  Some people enjoy winter mountaineering and do it all the time.  Of course, every year a few of those people get killed, too.  It's not something that you can just decide to do without extensive preparation, and even then there are no guarantees.

Probably a better option would be to start in early/mid April, hike north, and see how far you get by the end of July.  You almost certainly won't make it to Canada but it would still be an epic hike and you'd have some left over for another time.  Between January and April, maybe you can do another long trail that doesn't have so much snow.  A classic PCT thru-hike is probably not in the cards for you but if you think creatively you can still spend most of your seven months hiking, which is the important thing, right?

Eric