[pct-l] KM Date, Ray Day, snow hiking

[Postholer]

Thru-hiking is not about mountaineering. Most thru-hikers are not trained 
for that nor do they need to be.

Hiking big miles on early season snow is exhausting, time consuming, 
requires more gear, food and good route finding skills.

The concept of "Ray Day" or June 15th is not arbitrary. Based on an AVERAGE 
snow year, departing KM on the 15th implies a hiker will have to deal with 
MINIMAL or TOLERABLE streches of snow travel, ie, traveling across 6 miles 
of snowy Muir Pass as opposed to an exhausting, winter wonderland, all day 
route finding excursion.

Further, the earlier you start you increase the probability of dealing with 
late winter weather. Starting in March or early April pretty much garuntees 
you'll deal with snow in the SoCal mountains as well as the Sierra, not to 
mention colder temps, more rain and snow.

Why are earlier start dates being promoted? Most folks are not prepared for 
this. Is this really in the best interest of the PCT thru-hiking community?

-postholer

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