[pct-l] Side-trail quality, Hitching Difficulty, Water after Pines to Palms, Hiker Hunger, and Driveby

[mark v]

Hey Piper, Driveby signed the register at the Canadian border a day before me, but was gone by the time i got to Manning Park.  He was hustling to get home for a family matter.  That guy can book it.  If anyone has contact information for him, i'd really appeciate it.  He was one of my favorite people on the trail, but true to his name, me and others i talked to only saw him for a few days before he zoomed on.

I also when planning was very determined to minimize amount of supplies carried, balanced with minimizing length of side trails.  After doing the trail though, i have to say that whether or not a side trail or hitch was worth it had EVERYthing to do with how enjoyable the side trail was and how difficult the hitch was.  Devil's Slide is a great and beautiful trail.  The same length and incline would be totally not worth it if it were boring, but Devil's Slide is the opposite.  Also, both Pines to Palms and the Devil's Slide trailhead are super-easy hitches.  I wanted to walk and not hitch, but even with no thumb out i had MULTIPLE cars stop and offer me rides anyway.  Cabazon sounds the opposite.   The one person i knew who went there had a long ordeal trying to hitch both ways.

Another example of a long wonderful side trail is Kearsarge Pass to Independence.  Another example of a hitch not worth the trouble was Onyx/Lake Isabella.  Sometimes carrying the extra food weight is better.  With a lot of online reading and asking you can come up with a good guess what you'd like to do, but there will always be places where later you wish you had or hadn't diverted from the trail.  

Am i the only one who set advance caches for Section A (not just water, but food and gear)?  I know my hiking start was weird, being in winter, but i found it was a great help at the beginning when out of shape to be able to semi-slack a lot of the first 100 miles.

Preparing for 2008, i read plenty of 2007 info about the springs between Pines to Palms and Devil's Slide.  It didn't sound all that dire, but there was one spring that was sort of wrecked, meaning you had to look in the bushes for the source.  I bet that the water reports will start showing specific info for these springs soon.  Or maybe a direct email to AsAbat?  At Kickoff itself, there will be the most up-to-date info on these specific springs and how to or whether to use them.

I guess i'm unusual on this too (big surprise), but my hiker hunger sets in on Day 1.  And my fitness level didn't really kick in until the 2nd month.  I still pushed out some 25-mile days here and there in the first month, but they left me exhausted and i had blisters.  In the 2nd month 25-mile days didn't do much other than make me feel like i had hiked a full day.  I'm 40, basically normal weight.  (Well, before last xmas at least.)