[pct-l] Doing the trail on the cheap...

[reynolds@iLAN.com (Reynolds, WT)]

'Why not have a motor home follow you from road j
unction to road junction and be the first person to hike the entire trail
with nothing in their fanny pack but lunch!

First of all, fanny packs are heavy and quite uncomfortable. Second,
sleeping in a motor home has drawbacks although I'll admit that with the
advent of satelitte TV they are much more comfortable than before. You
should look into these new small pilotless airplanes that are being
developed. They are very quiet in operation but can be very accurately
targeted. I see no reason why they couldn't deliver your lunch. I checked
with Northrop. They estimate they can develop a PCT model for less than $2B.
Finally, with no pack one should be able to do 7-9 miles per day. So
dividing 7 into 2800 means only about 400 five star hotels will be needed.
At about $100mil each this is only $40 bil.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: Bighummel@aol.com [mailto:Bighummel@aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2002 1:17 AM
To: lbakkar@hotmail.com; pct-l@backcountry.net
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Doing the trail on the cheap...


I kept track of my costs back in 1977.

I had some of my gear (sleeping bag, stove, down jacket) given to me for
birthday and Christmas before. I bought my backpack ($100), tent ($100), ice
axe ($65), boots ($75) and food ($800) beforehand.  I bought all of my
out-of-town food ahead of time in this $800.

I saved up approximately $1,500 for town and miscellaneous equipment,
transportation or in-town food supply and motel costs.

So, total of about $2,600 for about 2,600 miles.  A dollar per mile isn't a
bad deal even 25 years ago.

Today, I would buy a new pack ($150), a new sleeping bag ($125), a new tent
($150), use existing clothing and make most of my other equipment.  I'd try
wearing trail running shoes for all but the Sierras and bring my old
wood-handle ice axe and some other sentimental equipment.  I would
pre-purchase only a small amount of my food, make a ton of beef and other
kinds of meat jerky and some awesome gorp.  Buy the rest in towns.  I'd
figure about $2,500 for town costs now, including a lot of my food for on
the
trail.

It can be done for much less, though.
You could;
- Make your own pack
- Make your sleeping bag
- Make your own tent / tarp
- Make your own stove
- Make your own rain / wind parka
- Make your own fleece jacket
- Pre-dry and make all of your trail food
- Limit your in-town costs

And probably end up spending a bit less than I did back in 1977.

Best regards,

Greg "Strider" Hummel
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