[pct-l] To Patrick Maloney

[Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com]

Then again, many people teeter at the edge of health due to near  
starvation by the time they complete the Sierra, so a whole 700 miles  
may be overkill.

When I returned to try to complete the trail last year, I put in  
about 350 miles from Santa Barbara to Lone Pine as training. That  
seemed to be more than enough. 200 miles would have been sufficient.

On Jan 25, 2010, at 12:33 PM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

>> The 700 miles of training up to the Sierras is pretty essential  
>> for making
> it through them without too much suffering.
>
> Indeed, and it's not just a matter of fitness, but also altitude
> acclimatization.  I know a hiker who had formerly thru-hiked and  
> passed
> through the high sierras without incident.  In 07 he was hiking the  
> sierras
> without having hiked the trail up to that point and the altitude  
> and heat
> hit him hard - a few days in he was so ill he had to be airlifted out.
> Doesn't mean it's not possible to start there, but you'd be  
> starting with
> the most difficult stretch of the entire trail so unless you're  
> very fit and
> lucky enough to not be highly effected by altitude, you'd need to  
> go slow.
>
> Cheers,
> P178