[pct-l] snowed out of my shakedown ...

[Paul Robison]

I started a thru last year and got snowed on in warner springs and idyllwild... But it was 25 to 30'deg F. And not more than 3 inches at once.

Here it's 6 deg f with the windchill.  Big difference between even 25F and 10F.

We're in central inland B.C. ... But this is unseasonable for even us.  I may just end up leaving a week earlier and doing some camping somewhere else... It's getting that close to time.

~Paul



Sent from my iPod

On 2011-03-30, at 11:40 PM, Eric Lee <saintgimp at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Paul wrote:
>> 
> was going to start a nice shakedown trip today at the local provincial
> park... 
> ... was cold but tolerable this morning... but it just got colder, and
> colder. 
> and started to snow...
> ... and snow ...
>> 
> 
> Well - I don't know exactly what your weather was like today (where do you
> live?) but it's been known to both rain and snow on the PCT during hiking
> season.  Yes, in southern California.  Yes, in May.  See the "Wizards of the
> PCT" movie for an example, among others.  Seems like exactly the kind of
> conditions you'd want to test your gear in.  If you don't feel that your
> gear is up to a test drive in cold, snowy weather, what do you plan to do if
> you hit cold, snowy weather on the trail?
> 
> I don't mean to sound condescending but everyone should be clear about the
> range of weather you can expect to run into on the PCT and have solid plans
> for dealing with all of it.  Doesn't mean you have to carry ridiculous
> mountaineering gear (maybe you'll just wrap yourself up like a burrito in
> your ultralight tarp) but if you're not confident enough to try it in bad
> weather on a shakedown trip then you're not really confident enough to rely
> on it when you're a day and a half from a bailout point.
> 
> My apologies if you're currently in the middle of some north-Alaskan
> blizzard or something.  :-)
> 
> Eric
>