[pct-l] Thru-Hike, Explorer Style

[eric at ericwichman.com]

The camp fire issue could pose a big problem.

 From what I've read though, there are stipulations that allow  
campfires, but not above certain elevations in certain areas.

Maybe it's possible to plan certain areas to hunt/camp/cook. Game  
animals like the lower elevations anyway where there's more food and  
water, and campfires are usually prohibited at the higher elevations.  
It may work out ok.

~Eric


Quoting Edward Anderson <mendoridered at yahoo.com>:

> Hello Eric,
>  
> How would you cook your meat?  Do you realize that campfires are   
> ILLEGAL along most of the PCT.  It will be enforced as much as   
> possible in Southern California during the 2013 hiking season - and   
> there is a substantial fine. We have had too many wildfires along   
> the PCT. I suggest that you check this with the U.S Forest Service   
> in Wrightwood. I suppose you could just eat everything raw. That   
> would also save you time.
>  
> Have a good hike,
>  
> MendoRider-Hiker
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: "eric at ericwichman.com" <eric at ericwichman.com>
> To: Eric Lee <saintgimp at hotmail.com>
> Cc: pct-l at backcountry.net
> Sent: Sunday, November 4, 2012 6:41 PM
> Subject: Re: [pct-l] Thru-Hike, Explorer Style
>
> 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
>>
>>
>
>
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