[pct-l] Ray Day

[David Ellzey]

One of the best PCT-L posts I have ever read. Thanks Miner.

BigToe

-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net] On Behalf Of Sean Nordeen
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2013 5:01 PM
To: Pct-l at backcountry.net
Subject: [pct-l] Ray Day

I figure most people would like some background info on where Ray Day actually comes from.  I posted the following in a pre-trip entry on my
2009 PCT journal on Postholer.

Ray Day is June 15th and is considered the optimal entry date into the High Sierra from Kennedy Meadows in an average snow year in terms of snow encountered and the difficulty of fords while still finishing up in Canada before the Winter Stroms hit the Northern Cascade mountains.
But where does it come from?

I dug through some used bookstores and found a 1st edition of Ray Jardine's PCT Handbook to find out. From reading his book, he actually envisioned June 13th as the optimal start date with people arriving at Kennedy Meadows around the 11th for a ADZPCTKO type get together. So Ray Day should be June 13th and not the 15th. So where did June 15th come from? It came from the 5.5 and 6 month itinerary charts from his book. All other charts had an earlier date listed. The 15th came from the long itinerary hikers (who were the majority back then) passing the date forward by word of mouth. After all, when the book was published in the early 90's, most people were still carrying traditional gear and lightweight techniques hadn't really caught on yet so those were the planning charts most people used. But since most people today are carrying less weight and now take 4-5 months to hike the trail, shouldn't they be using the shorter itineraries with an earlier entry date? You'd think so, but those intinerary charts were no longer published after '98 when Ray Jardine changed his book to be more about long distance hiking in general rather then just a PCT oriented book. Everything about Ray Day has since been passed forward by the grapevine. And anyone who has ever played that game in school knows how corrupted things become with each telling.

But how did Ray Jardine come up with mid June in the first place?
Surely, it comes from heavy research and his own PCT experience. Well, when you look at his 3 PCT hikes, you find that he never used Ray Day on any of his hikes. On his first PCT hike, it took 3 weeks from Kennedy Meadows to Tuolumne Meadows and was done entirely in May. His second hike was described as another early entry hike though not as early as the 1st one and only took 2 weeks to cover the same ground with a lighter pack. I personally believe this was either a late may or beginning of June entry date, but I can't prove it. It certainly was before mid-June. His 3rd PCT hike was a southbound one so Ray Day never came into the discussion.

Well, if Ray Jardine never used Ray Day in his own planning, why did it come about? It seems to be an attempt to delay entry into the Sierra as late as possible (and thus encountering less snow in the
Sierras) for the longer itinerary hikers but still giving them a chance at finishing before the big snow storms hit the Northern Cascasdes. This isn't a bad idea. However, if this was his main reason, then why are the 3 month internary people also entering in mid-june rather then a later date. After all, on their schedule, they will finish up long before late September when the snow risks start to go up. In fact, he has them finishing in early to mid-August. So surely they could enter in late June to early July and have an easier time of it. But since he doesn't, this reason seems to be out. Many people think that Ray Day has also taken into consideration the difficulty of the major fords. But I find no mention of this in Ray's original book when talking about it.

>From what Ray has written, Ray Day mainly came about as an attempt to
artificially create a gathering of all the hikers on the trail. People could relax a few days in preperation for the difficult Sierra crossing and teams of hikers would form so that less experience ones could pair up with those more experienced. And in one way, Ray was successful. Only instead of a gathering forming from June 11-13 at Kennedy Meadows, one was created in April 25-27 at the border. A date that someone on a 5-6month itinerary would be using as a start date in order to reach Kennedy Meadows on June 15th which has wrongly been called Ray Day. So instead of having people start spread out and slowly converging at the Sierras. We have most people starting at the same time and staying converged all the way to the Sierras, negatively impacting the southern environment, trail towns, and trail angels (according to one famous trail angel). Fortunately the Sierras manage to start to spread out the herd from that point north.

So in conclusion, Ray Day is just an arbitrary day. People have successfully hiked by entering a month earlier and a month later so one's start date should be determined by when you want to finish and how long you want it to take. It shouldn't be determined by listening to someone insisting that this is the only way but who never tried to do it any other way themselves. The only time restriction on the PCT is that from late September on, the risk of heavy snows in the Cascades goes up. In 2007, anyone who wasn't done by Oct.1 was forced off the PCT and had to road walk to Canada to a point far from the northern PCT terminus. In other years, they were able to hike until to Mid-October. In some years, a few have finished as late as Oct.23 though they did encounter snow. It depends on the weather that year and what risks you are willing to run.

-Miner
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