[pct-l] Starting Mileage

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

I found the PCT to be way easier for hiking than the trails I'm used  
to. Sometimes I got mad at the PCT for taking so long to get up and  
down mountains. 20 PCT miles are like 10 Los Padres National Forest  
miles.

I think what leads a lot of people to 20 mile days right off the bat  
is fear of lack of water. There was actually a whole lot more water  
at the start of the trail than I was led to believe, which kind of  
made me mad because I was carrying way more water and worrying about  
it way more than necessary. The water report really helps, but you  
still end up not trusting water sources to be there when you get  
there, so you end up being fearful and conservative. I guess this is  
a good thing, but I certainly could have worried less and gone way  
slower at first than I thought I could.

Anyway, I left Campo at 3:30pm and slept 9 miles up the trail. I  
camped at Lake Morena the next day, after 11 miles. I camped at  
Cibbet Flat campground the following day for a 13 mile day. The  
following day I was in Lake Morena campground where there was plenty  
of water available--I don't remember how many miles that is but it's  
not more than 15. After that, I kept my mileage around 15-16 up until  
somewhere around Deep Creek where I started doing my first 20+ mile  
days. I never ran out of water in all that time and never needed the  
water caches, either. I probably passed 3-5 water sources every day  
most days with a few days with less than that. I started in May in  
2008, a fairly decent water year, maybe slightly above average. Not a  
drought year anyway.

Diane
On Nov 13, 2011, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

> There are so many ways to do just about everything in regards to a  
> long
> hike, and pretty much all of them are good for someone out there  
> hiking a
> great hike.  For me, at 57 and prone to overdue running and hiking  
> when the
> endorphins kick in, I needed to start slow as Ned suggests, and it  
> worked
> well for me.  I trained a lot before hitting trail, at 15 to 20  
> mile days,
> but when I left Campo I promised myself only 10 to 12  for the  
> first week,
> then 15 or so the second, and only allowed myself to get over 20 on  
> the
> third week.  What I found was that I was so fit at the start, the  
> trail was
> never as hard as the training I'd been doing.  That was a real plus  
> as many
> were dying those first few weeks, which in 2010 was the time of  
> highest
> attrition.