[pct-l] Prepared for weather

[Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com]

I do see a pattern that if someone can't find the road to Cabazon or  
they turn up freezing cold at Mike Herrera's house or their tent  
falls down in 50mph winds (really, whose wouldn't?) the list tends to  
bring out discussions of why these people were so ill-prepared.

But ok fine, let's go on the assumption that these people are ill- 
prepared. Are they entirely to blame when the tendency for PCT  
listers and hikers, including seasoned PCT hikers, alike is to  
dismiss the entire first 700 miles of California as "the desert"?

I have argued with people that it's not the desert and they've  
disagreed with me despite me providing links to show the facts, so  
ingrained is the belief that it's all desert. I even spoke to someone  
on the trail who told me how much they loved the desert, having never  
visited before. Easy to say while they were under the forest canopy  
of the Lagunas.

There are only a few small places where hikers are actually truly in  
the desert as defined as a place with very little rainfall and sparse  
vegetation. The rest of the time you are hiking through all kinds of  
areas from riparian woodlands to oak woodlands to oak savannas to  
juniper and pine forest to the big cone pine forested north facing  
slopes to interior live oak, blue oak and black oak forests and yes,  
a lot of chapparal. But chapparal isn't desert either. It's a forest  
adapted to conditions of hot dry summers, frequent droughts, wildfire  
and a COOL WET RAINY SEASON that stretch from OCTOBER TO APRIL.

But most people dismiss southern California as "the desert" and say  
things like "only 700 miles of desert and you'll be in the Sierra  
where the real hike begins". The tendency then is to believe you can  
start your hike in March as if you were going for a hike in Tucson.  
When my boyfriend wanted to start in mid-April I thought that was a  
little early but since previous years have been pretty nice and more  
and more people seemed to be starting earlier and earlier, maybe it  
would work out. I started my hike in May using Ray Jardine's Beyond  
Backpacking itineraries. I think it's interesting to note that even  
his longest itinerary doesn't start until May 7.

So maybe the blame lies in people using the shorthand "desert" to  
talk about hiking in hot, dry southern California. It's no desert.  
You are hiking from sky island to sky island. You are reaching nearly  
10,000 feet forested mountain conditions within a few days. You touch  
true desert only a few times and spend only a few days here and there  
in it. And if you start your hike in April, you are still within the  
rainy season.

(P.S. I still wouldn't bring an ice axe. I would find another route  
or turn back. I am pretty sure you can still get injured falling with  
an ice axe. I believe every hiking party needs one scaredy-cat female  
not afraid to turn back with them.)


On May 2, 2010, at 9:36 PM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

>
> On May 2, 2010, at 8:04 PM, abiegen at cox.net wrote:
>>
>> P.S. Unless you have a time machine, don't bother trying to preach  
>> to those who have already learned their lesson. It annoys the  
>> person who has learned the hard way and bores everyone else on the  
>> list.
>
> I hope my posts haven't come across as an attempt to 'preach' to  
> those who ran into problems on the trail. That certainly wasn't my  
> intent.  Those who have 'learned their lesson the hard way' can  
> help future hikers by sharing the details of their incidents. I  
> think the details are important as it is very easy to discount  
> general statements like "be prepared" or generic warnings about  
> hypothermia, dehydration, or hazardous snow conditions "in the  
> desert".
>
> Maybe there needs to be more 'testimonials' in Yogi's handbook or  
> at the kickoff about preparing for bad weather. Maybe we need a  
> section on the PCT FAQ, maybe we should collect the details of  
> these events and post them somewhere for others to read and for us  
> to point to when questions about bad weather come up on PCT-L.
>
> It seems clear to me that some hikers have been unprepared for even  
> some of the moderately bad weather (cool and rainy) never mind the  
> more severe cold and snowy weather.  If we can better understand  
> how they came to be in those situations we may be able to help  
> future hikers avoid a similar situation.
>
> Radar

Books I've written:
~ Piper's Flight
~ Adventure and Magic
~ Santa Barbara Hikes
http://stores.lulu.com/dianesoini