[pct-l] Thru-riding, north to south

[Dorian]

Thank you all for your nice and quick advices.

>From what I understand now, some parts seem really difficult on horses, and
I don't want to put myself and my animal companions in danger. So I will
just look at what parts of the PCT are really enjoyable with them, and find
other routes to link them. That won't be thru-riding, but I just want to
enjoy the trip, not being the hyper-though survivor :)

Thank you for this first enlightment, I will probably continue to bother you
with some stupid questions.

2011/5/9 Eric Lee <saintgimp at hotmail.com>

> Dorian wrote:
> >
> My name is Dorian, and I will be coming in USA in one month to try to
> thru-ride from north to south. I'm a very experienced rider, and I decided
> some times ago to have a 6 months break to do such a trip. To be honest, I
> did not know about the PCT before yesterday, but it seems to fit perfectly
> well what I want to do.
> >
>
> I'm glad you're excited about the PCT - it's a great trail!  However, you
> might want to consider doing a little more research before you make a
> serious commitment to this project.  For example, a month from now most of
> the PCT in Washington state will still be covered in snow.  While
> south-bound hikers can deal with that, I'm pretty sure a horse wouldn't
> deal
> with it well at all.  Even the south-bound hikers don't typically start
> their hikes until the last half of June and many of them find the
> conditions
> to be challenging even then.
>
> Also, there's typically a lot of storm damage and downed trees on the trail
> after every winter and the trail crews can't get that cleaned up right
> away.
> A single big tree over the trail on a steep side-hill traverse can make the
> trail totally impassible for a horse.  Considering both snow and
> blow-downs,
> I wouldn't expect the northern part of the PCT to be reliably passable for
> horses until probably August.  (Disclaimer: I'm not a horseman so I'm
> making
> educated guesses here.)
>
> As for access to the northern terminus - the north end of the trail is in
> the middle of a large wilderness area.  You're probably going to have to
> purchase your horses somewhere else and trailer them in to Hart's Pass
> which
> is 35 miles south of the border.  At that point you could choose to just
> start riding south or you could go 35 miles north to the border, turn
> around, and come back.  There is easier access from the Canadian side but
> it's illegal to enter the US from Canada via the PCT (you must go through
> an
> official border crossing point to enter the US).
>
> Resupply  would also be a huge pain and honestly I don't think you could do
> it without caching stuff for yourself ahead of time at road crossings,
> and/or having a friend ready to assist you.  In the state of Washington the
> trail doesn't through or even near *any* significant towns.  Hikers have to
> mail resupply boxes to themselves or hitchhike out to find a store.
>
> If you're really serious about doing this, I'd suggest that you first plan
> on renting a car to drive around Washington state.  See what the road
> access
> is like and what the resupply options look like.  Do a few day-hikes in
> various locations to assess whether the condition of the trail is something
> you're able to handle.  There are a handful of people who have done
> long-distance rides on the PCT but it's not at all common so you're going
> to
> have trouble finding a lot of information about it.  The best thing you can
> do is come scout it for yourself.
>
> The bottom line is that the PCT trail itself is graded for horses, and
> horses are allowed on the entire trail, but the *logistics* of the trail
> are
> not friendly for long-distance riding.  There are a couple of experienced
> horsemen on this email list who can give you lots of advice, so hopefully
> they'll jump in with more words of wisdom.
>
> Eric
>
>