[pct-l] An early start.

[mardav@charter.net (Marion Davison)]

To tsimon:
Last year we did a section hike from Wrightwood to Soledad Canyon during the last
week of March.  You can probably find my trip report in the archives, but I will
sum it up for you.  Keep in mind that last year was a low snow-low rain year.
We had snow on the Acorn trail from Wrightwood to the ridge.  It was several feet
deep and windblown into drifts near the ridge.  We had a snowstorm overnight when
we camped at Guffy, but the wind blew the snow over the ridge and left the road
atop the ridge mostly bare.  The trail, which runs just below the north side of
the ridge was buried in drifts, so we walked along the dirt road all the way to
Hiway 2.  We had to dodge operating ski runs and keep to the ridge top.  The rest
of the trip we had sunshine and ever increasing temperatures.  We found no
running surface water, and got water from Grassy Hollow centers bathroom, a shut
off pipe at Mill Creek Ranger Station(we drained that sucker), a cistern near the
prison camp (not recommended for consumption) and from North Fork ranger stations
faucets.  We got water from one pump- controlled spring near Three Points.   All
but one of the creeks and springs were dry.  We found standing water in the
streambed  at Sulpher Springs Campground.  We stayed in several of the public
campgrounds along the way, but all of them were closed for the season and their
faucets were turned off.  We did not hike the trail from Vincent Gap to Cooper
Canyon, as we did not want to travel the snowy slopes of Baden Powell and risk a
fall. That is one of the most dangerous parts of the PCT.  I once fell and slid
there in JUNE.   There is no way to outfit llamas with iceaxes and crampons!
Instead we hiked the High Desert trail down to Devils Punchbowl and hiked back to
Cooper Canyon on the Burkhardt trail.  We had planned to hike to Agua Dulce, but
we stopped short at Soledad Canyon and found someone in the campground to give us
a ride to our van, parked at Saufley's.  The reason we stopped was because we had
100 degree temps hiking from North Fork to Soledad Cyn, and one of our llamas
showed signs of heat stroke.  They were still wearing their wooly winter coats.
The lowest temp we had, on the snowstorm night, was about 20 degrees.
So as you can see the early season made for some extremes and some unexpected
things and some compromises from the trail for safety's sake, but it was still a
great trip.
Marion Davison, "llamalady"