[pct-l] Reality Check on Craig's PCT Planner

[Judson Brown]

On flat ground, I usually find myself hiking about 3 mph. The best thing to
do is dress exactly like you would for hiking the trail, put on a pack with
your expected weight, and go on a flat hike of several miles with a known
length so you can time yourself. Just hike like you normally would, without
trying to hurry.

Then, with the same kit, find a hike with 1000 feet of gain and calculate
your speed once again. This will give you an idea of how much time you
should add for the climbing part.

As for hours per day, everyone varies. I usually hike 20-25 miles per day
(except in the Sierras). That's less than most thru-hikers, but a
respectable amount. I'm hiking by 7 each morning, and hike until 7 each
night. During the day, I take 2 half-hour breaks at 930 and 230, an hour at
noon, and an hour for dinner at five. This gives me 9 hours of actual
hiking time.

When I've used the planner, I found that it would always recommend fewer
miles per day than I wanted, so I would tweek the attributes until it gave
me what I wanted.

Hope this is helpful, and I'm a section hiker, so feel free to apply grains
of salt liberally.

bunnyslayer

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 1:17 AM, b j <xthrow at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Warning: Data geek alert for what follows!
>
> I need a reality check off of Craig's PCT Planner at www.pctplanner.com
>
> I put in a basic scenario just going with the defaults and I needed hear
> what people do differently for planning scenarios or in reality.
>
> Start: April 15, 2013
> Default speed: 2.25 mi/h
> Default actual hiking time: 8 hr/d
> Default elevation penalty (for every 1000 ft climbed add:) 45 min
>
> With NO resupply days off, I get a Manning Park arrival of Oct 9th --
> ouch!  What do I tweak?  Hours hiking / day? , elevation penalty?, is the
> default speed considered slow?  Because I know you all take days off here
> and there go into town to freshen up your pretty faces! :-)
>
> As a comparison, Ray Jardine's 5-month plan has 1 zero day / week, an
> average speed of 2.75 mi/hr and 8 hrs hiking a day.  If I up Craig's PCT
> planner speed to 2.75 mi/hr, I get an arrival of Sept 13, but that's still
> without any zero days anywhere.
>
> Is 2.25 or even 2.75 mi/hr still too slow?  Anybody know the pack's
> average hiking speed (or does that vary considerably)? recommended hours
> hiked per day to make it to the border? recommended max zeros?  Are the
> defaults for Craig's PCT planner tortoisely conservative?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Rhiannon
>
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