[pct-l] ADZPCTKO

[Kathi]

Hello All,

I don't see it mentioned here so I thought I'd post the sad, but 
understandable, news about ADZPCTKO.

 From their website:

They say all good things must come to an end, and so it is with Annual 
Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off. This year, as we have for the 
past 17 years, the ADZPCTKO organizers will gather at Lake Morena County 
Park to greet hikers passing through, offer them a cold (or hot, 
depending on the weather) beverage, and some advice from those who have 
been there before.

But we won't have the trappings that have come to define kick off in 
recent years: hot meals served to hundreds, a vendor fair of items 
uniquely suited to long-distance hiking, a full schedule of informative 
seminars, nightly film presentations, and reunions of previous PCT 
thru-hiker classes. Also missing: overcrowded campsites, overflowing 
septic tanks, long lines for registration and meals, and loud late-night 
parties.

So why end this tradition that is loved by many and reviled by a few?

 From the beginning, our sole purpose has been to help current-year 
aspiring thru hikers. Calming the butterflies. Educating about effective 
equipment, techniques, leave no trace ethics, and how to be an 
ambassador for the Pacific Crest Trail. Providing information about 
current trail, snow, and water conditions. Showing the geology, flora, 
and fauna to be encountered along the way. Even supporting and 
maintaining water caches. We've never wavered from that core mission; as 
the event grew larger and new features were added, we tried to ensure 
that they served that core mission.

But a lot has changed since the first ADZPCTKO in 1999.

Information resources for PCT hikers were sparse then. PCTA had only a 
basic (and mostly static) website hosted on gorp.com <http://gorp.com/>. 
PCT-L was in its infancy. Facebook didn't even exist until five years 
later. There were no Halfmile maps and no Yogi's PCT Handbook. No map 
apps existed, which isn't surprising because no smartphones existed. 
Hikers who wanted ultralight gear had to make their own; a few became so 
good at it that they turned their efforts into small businesses that 
later displayed their wares at ADZPCTKO. With only analog film equipment 
and limited web tools, it was much easier to share your experience with 
other hikers by gathering in small groups.

Small groups? When ADZPCTKO began, a few hundred hikers would attempt a 
thru hike each year, and a sizable portion of them started in the 
several days before or after KO, as that was generally considered to be 
the optimal start date. The number grew slowly but steadily, and KO grew 
with it. And then there was Wild. Trail popularity skyrocketed, so that 
now PCTA issues several thousand permits for hikers starting throughout 
the spring. We have always been cognizant of the bump in daily trail use 
coinciding with KO, but the biggest herd ever out of KO's early days was 
no match for the size of current daily quotas. We don't want to create a 
bigger wave than the one that already exists. An event held on a single 
weekend can do one of two things: reach only a small fraction of this 
year's hikers, or skew the starting dates in a way that creates a huge 
herd (assuming we had the ability to accommodate an ever larger crowd, 
which we don't).

The explosion of alternative information resources and the explosion in 
the number of hikers have simultaneously reduced the need for an event 
like ours and made it less effective -- leaving us to wonder how 
ADZPCTKO 2017 can fulfill that core mission of assisting current-year 
thru hikers.

So that's where we are. Lots of good memories, lots of enduring 
friendships. And the realization that an event that was an essential 
trail stop a few years ago is not right for the PCT of 2017.

As our founder and dear friend Greg "Strider" Hummel said: "No regrets! 
No fears! No worries! No tears!" We hope to see you all out on the 
trail. Have a great hike!