[pct-l] Thru-Hike, Explorer Style

[eric at ericwichman.com]

Hi Eric, Thanks for the detailed reply. I agree largely with most of  
what you've said. As for my experience, I grew up in the Southeast,  
and have survival and outdoor "training" (Dad was special forces,  
Green Beret, and was in no uncertain terms a stickler for survival  
skills training. We lived ate and breathed it daily growing up, and he  
made us learn it, tested us and drilled it into us. We used to hike  
and hunt our way out of the woods on multi-day trips just for fun.

I spent most of my childhood and young adult life in the woods,  
hunting, fishing, camping and hiking all over the wilds of Florida.

My longest 'hike' or walking was a adventure/trip I did a couple years  
ago, over a period 16 days and walked about 350 miles (20+ mile days  
were the norm) I would walk from sun up to sun down most days. I admit  
though it was NOT a survival trip, and I was walking around fields and  
woods in the northern-midwest. Suffice it to say I had the luxury of  
eating a hot meal and climbing into a nice warm bed each night.

Point being my endurance is fine on the trail. Just need to get back  
in shape, and lose some mid section weight. At 200 lbs I'm not happy,  
at 180 I'm good.

As for the opinion of ethics of foraging along the trail. I agree if  
500 people did it, then it would probably leave some noticeable trace.  
Fortunately 500 people don't do that, and nowhere near that many  
people thruhike the trail each year.

This is an "idea" I am considering at the moment to see if it's  
feasible first. Then if feasible (and legal) I will decide if I will  
attempt it.

It's enough of a challenge to complete any long distance hike WITH  
resupply. Doing the PCT with no resupply is a challenge for me and me  
alone for my own reasons.

Do you know if starting early in April is a good idea or no? Is that  
too early for the snow and ice in the Sierras to be melted? Not real  
concerned about the desert area in SoCal as much as the higher  
altitude snow and ice.

Also, I read somewhere the you can expect to have to use an ice axe  
and crampons somewhere on the trail. This poses a logistics problem  
with my self-imposed "no resupply" rule. Which would mean I'd have to  
carry them the whole way if I need them, which adds more weight to my  
pack, which I am not fond of. That added weight will burn extra  
calories which I will need badly if I'm living off the land.

If I think of any more questions I'll be sure to send them to the list...

~Eric


Quoting Eric Lee <saintgimp at hotmail.com>:

> Eric wrote:
>>
> P.S. I'd actually rather talk about my original question of whether it's
> possible to do an Explorer/Survival style thruhike with no resupplies.
>>
>
> "Possible" is a squishy sort of word, as I've written about before in
> response to other questions along these lines.  Some people take offense at
> being told _anything_ is impossible, and yes, history is replete with
> examples of things that were simply not possible until, oops, someone went
> and did it.  So, I'll just say it's very, very unlikely.
>
> You didn't say whether this is a hypothetical question or an actual proposal
> for your thru-hike next year.  As far as crazy proposals go, this one is
> pretty safe: go ahead and try it and if it doesn't work out for you, well,
> there's probably a grocery store within a couple day's walk for you to
> surrender at.  You're not going to starve to death in two or three days.
> This idea is a perfect one for empirical experimentation.
>
> Your original question was, "Has anyone ever attempted a thru-hike
> completely off grid, if not why not, if so, WHO, and were they successful?"
>
> The answers to the best of my knowledge are that no, no one has made a
> serious attempt to thru-hike with no resupplies.  Actually, I dimly recall
> one woman several years ago who supposedly was doing the southern California
> part of the PCT that way but a) I can't remember who it was, b) it certainly
> wasn't the whole trail, and c) there were serious questions about whether
> she was actually telling the truth about what she claimed to have done.
> Sorry, that's all I got.
>
> As for why not, there are several reasons.  First, the thru-hiking season is
> bracketed by snow on both ends.  Each year is different but on average you
> have about a five month window of good hiking conditions (and maybe another
> month of marginal conditions).  In those five months you have to walk 2,650
> miles, and most people need some rest days sprinkled in there, so most
> people need to average at least 20 miles a day when they're walking.  Most
> people take most of the available daylight hours to walk 20 miles
> (accounting for rest breaks, meals, etc.).  There simply isn't _time_ to do
> serious foraging for food during a one-season thru-hike.  Walking is your
> full-time job.  Finding food definitely means you're not walking.  Or even
> worse, it means you're walking a lot but not in the right direction (see
> point #2).
>
> Second, the PCT isn't routed where you're likely to find a lot of food
> sources.  There's a reason why it's called the Pacific *CREST* Trail.  If
> you were an actual explorer or fur trapper in the early 1800's, you wouldn't
> choose to travel where the PCT goes.  If you were trying to make miles in
> those days you'd stay down in the valleys as much as possible where there's
> more to eat and travel is less arduous.  You'd use canoes or rafts as much
> as possible.  You wouldn't venture up onto the high ridgelines where the PCT
> likes to go unless there was no other choice.  Hiking on the PCT, to
> reliably find food you're probably going to have to regularly leave the
> trail and go to where the food is.
>
> Third, as people have mentioned, hunting regulations will severely impact
> what food you can collect along your journey.  Deer are the most obvious and
> plentiful source of calorie-dense food but it's not legal to hunt them for
> most of the thru-hiking window.  As you noted, there are other kinds of
> animals that are legal to hunt year round but they're not likely to be
> present exactly where you are (see point #2).  Please don't be a jerk by
> breaking the law - it drags down the good reputation of all PCT hikers.
>
> Fourth, foraging for all of your food is not a scalable or sustainable
> practice.  Yes, one person can try to do it and probably not make a lasting
> impact on the ecosystem of the trail, but 500 people doing it would clearly
> alter it from its current condition.  As a matter of ethics, I believe that
> makes it not right for even one person to do.  As an analogy, it used to be
> standard practice to cut fresh fir boughs to make a bed when one was out in
> the wilderness.  That practice is now extinct, thank goodness, because it's
> just not sustainable.  You may have different sense of ethics and I won't
> try to brow-beat you on this topic, but that's how I see it.
>
> In your first post to the PCT-L you said you had prior outdoor experience
> but you didn't say whether you've previously done long-distance hiking.  If
> you haven't, and if the no-resupply thing is something you're actually
> planning to do, then I suggest that you first try a shakedown trip of, say,
> 100 miles over 5 days and get a feel for what it's actually like.  People
> who haven't done long-distance hiking often have a distorted view of how
> much leisure time and spare energy they're likely to have while on the
> trail.  (I.e. they think "plenty" and reality is usually "none".)  If you
> really want to know if an explorer-style thru-hike is possible, you should
> first experience first-hand what it is that you're proposing to do.  You'll
> probably discover that long-distance hiking of that caliber is a lot
> different than you're imagining.
>
> Eric
>
>