[pct-l] Yee gawdz, get ahold of yourselves! Or, smallberries speaks and ...

[Bighummel@xxxxxxx (Bighummel@xxxxxxx)]

I guess that I'm not understanding something.  Mr. Smallberries said in his
post and recent reply that these are his opinions.  Whether he makes a
statement under such distinction that sounds like a demand of lecture or not,
it still remains his opinion, does'nt it?

Sly writes: "Many of your ideas of hiking have long since past, especially on
the
PCT."

Really Sly?  Which ones?  (by the way Sly, I'm not purposefully singling you
out here, please read my friendly intention as "you ultra-light thru-hiker
types who think that anyone carrying over 20 pounds, fully loaded, is from
the 1970's")

Boots?  Surely not, as I have personally witnessed a significant percentage
of thru-hikers who still prefer boots to trail shoes.

A 3 season tent?  Although the latest craze is to carry a tarp only I have
similarly witnessed many making or buying 3 season tents for thru-hiking the
PCT for good reasons.

Polarguard and no down?  This has been exhaustively argued here without any
clear resolution of "best" practice.

A good first aid kit?  You're kidding me, right?

Hmmm, what I think that I'm hearing here is that someone, like myself, has
stood up and said, "wait a second, there is another way to do this that is
not as risky as the ultra-light - 30 mile per day fan club is singing" and
you don't like his tone or his message.  Okay, yep, I've also been guilty of
criticizing ultra-light 30 mile per day as risky and taken similar heat, so
maybe I'm being a bit sensitive in reverse.

Hike Your Own Hike means that ultra light and 30 mile days is great for some
but there will always be some who choose to hike half that and carry twice as
much weight because that is what they define as their personal "right way to
do it".

In reading of many remote wilderness serious problems and having first hand
experience in others I find two general "conspiring factors" seem to come up,
over and over;

1) "Incremental Stupidity"; means that you make a series of minor assumptive
or poor decisions that now have culminated into getting yourself into serious
trouble, (I've done this several times!) and

2) "Random Intersecting Circumstances"; a number of circumstances that all
occur at once, that given one at a time, you could handle but together they
overwhelm either your capabilities and/or your equipment (or lack thereof).

A good hiking strategy, IMHO, should plan for these two "conspiring factors".
 Hiking 30 miles in a day and finding that a snow storm is hitting as the sun
is going down, at 10,000 feet in the Sierras, may put you in a situation
where hiking out is not a option.  What then?  Will you have enough energy to
fight the winds to put up your tarp in the driving snow and will it stand up
under the weight? What if you wake up to 2.5 feet of snow the next morning?
Don't say it doesn't happen.  It does in the Sierra late in the Spring and it
does in the Nth Cascades in early Fall, some years, not all.

IMHO, HYOH, YMMV, do not take as a flame or criticism of any one's
intentions, intelligence or correctness,

>From Sth California, where El Nino is in full swing, it is 80 degrees, the
wind is gusting between 30 and 60 mph and the ski industry is beginning to
whine after a few good early storms are melting off fast.

Greg "Strider" Hummel