[pct-l] Checking for trail conditions
Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com
diane at santabarbarahikes.com
Tue May 12 15:26:51 CDT 2009
One way to check for trail conditions ahead of you is to read the
trail journals. I used the trail journals last year to figure out
where people I knew were, to see if they were still on the trail,
ahead of me or behind me. If you can find the time to read them, you
might find some info about conditions, especially if you find a
journal-keeper ahead of you that likes to put in a lot of detail. You
could also assign someone at home the task of checking conditions
reported by people well ahead of you and they can email you the
details you might need. They could monitor journals and let you know
of anything coming up. You won't get a lot of quickly-accessed info
or 100% coverage, but you'll at least get something. In general, so
much happens on the trail every minute that even from morning to
evening half the things that happened are soon forgotten. I forgot
completely that there were a few blowdowns on the section between
highway 74 and Devil's Slide that I struggled over, and that was only
a week and a half ago. Seriously, if you had asked me the morning
after, I wouldn't have remembered them.
Another way to monitor conditions is through the PCTA on their trail
conditions page:
http://www.pcta.org/planning/during_trip/current.asp
Again, you won't get 100% coverage and much of the information is
quite time-sensitive (lots of snow could be no snow by the time you
get there). After I complained to Warner Springs Monty one evening
last year about all the downed trees down from Fuller Ridge, he
admonished me to send in my reports to the PCTA rather than just
complain or else nobody will know what needs to be done. So I
encourage others to do the same.
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