[pct-l] PCT international hopefuls seek local knowledge

[Louisa Bartlett]

Hello all,



My friend and I are very excited about attempting a thru-hike of the PCT
this year. We are from Australia and are currently grappling with some of
the more international specific logistical issues. Specifically, we would
like to dehydrate as many meals as possible for the trail but US Customs
does not appear to allow us to bring in dehydrated meat from overseas. As
such, we have decided to fly into LAX on March 16 to give us a few weeks to
hunker down somewhere, dehydrate food and attend to our last minute
preparations. We have also booked into one of the Snow Basic Courses in
Tahoe on the 4th, 5th and 6th of April and, if the snow drought holds,
we're looking at an early to mid-April start date.



We are currently trying to find somewhere to stay for the 2.5 weeks from
when we arrive in LA until when we leave for Tahoe. It seems that some kind
of vacation rental with a kitchen will be most appropriate given that we
will need to spend a significant amount of time cooking.



We were hoping that someone on the list might have some suggestions about a
good vacation rental or even a town/city to look for a vacation rental in.
I have tried plugging "California" into AirBnB and, as you can imagine, the
results are somewhat overwhelming.



We're not really very concerned about the place itself. Mainly, we're
looking for a somewhere that:



- Is well serviced by public transport so that we can get there from LA and
out to Tahoe without a car (neither of us is game to try driving on the
"wrong" side of the road).



- Has a kitchen that has a stove/oven and is fairly well-equipped with pots
and pans etc.



- Is reasonably close to shops where we can purchase ingredients to
dehydrate five months worth of meals (either walking distance or by taxi)



- Has a nearby gym, hiking-trails or places to run safely so that we can
keep working on getting "trail-ready"



- Is not too expensive. (We would obviously need to pay extra for the
consumption of electricity by our two dehydrators.)



Any views, leads or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We are both
28 year old professionals and are very well-house-trained.



Thank you,



Louisa