[pct-l] Snow Prep Course Concern; ice axes

[Mark Liechty]

Stephen wrote:
> Ned was this message in response to Mark who is planning only five 
> mile hikes?
> I wonder where and what kind of trips he's intending.  Not much use 
> for an axe most places from mid-June on five miles from the trail 
> heads I've used, but that's mostly eastern Sierra or SeqKings which 
> are lower elevations. Sounds like he should do some basic backpack 
> stuff first.  Not a darn thing wrong with introductory training type 
> hikes like we used to do in the scouts, overnighter stuff over the 
> weekends.  Cedar Grove and a number of other places in Seq Kings are 
> really good for this sort of thing come June. Y'll 'ld have to hike 
> quite far to need an ice axe from Big Trees, Lodgepole, Cedar Grove or 
> any number of trailheads there.  And there are a couple really cool 
> Sequioa hikes I do as late day overnighters if you know where the 
> trails are.
> But it's gonna take a while to hike hundreds of miles in the Sierra 
> without going more than five miles from the car.
>
#####################

I did get taken way out of context.  Let me start from the beginning.

THIS trip with Ned seems to have us within 5 miles or so of our starting 
point.  Since this is a training situation we do not need to be going to 
far from the starting point as we can get pretty remote very fast this 
time of the year in that area.  Seems the terrain has everything he 
needs  to accomplish the goals of the weekend.

Our  normal father\son weekend trips with my son are in the 10-30 mile 
range.   We did about 50 nights last year and expect to top that this 
year.  Don't move fast but make up for it with good attitude and a 
desire to spend time together and have a good time.

This weekend our Scout troop is going to Pt. Reyes for a backpacking 
trip full of fun in the liquid sunshine.  We expect it to be a 20 mile 
round trip (based on the weather forecast things may get interesting).  
It will be my 5th weekend in a row with some kind of camping.  Three 
have been in the snow using my tarp as my shelter.

My main goal for this training is to be sure that my son and I don't 
find ourselves as a statistics on one of our trips and more important 
that we gain enough to be able to share and keep others who are not as 
strong as the members of this list off the front page of CNN.COM

If it turns out that we are not as prepared as we need to be and are 
holding the rest of the group up then the proximity to the car becomes 
significant.  That is the message I was trying to share for any who were 
concerned.   This exit plan is more important to my wife than it is to 
me as I really hat the thought of quitting and it just does not happen.

Hopefully this makes some sense. 

Mark "Blankie" Liechty
mlaccs at mlaccs.com