[pct-l] Re: First post/water cache questions

[pcnst2@xxxxxxxxxxxx (David hiking PCNST in bits)]

> Motolady (Mary Barcik) maintains the one at Kelso Pass plus the Bird spring Pass cache, and she's religious about servicing them. Believe me, you'll need them!

Yes but she's only mortal, and last year during a hot spell she didn't think
she should go out and fill them by herself, so she waited for the weekend when
she could get some help... and a number of through-hikers found both caches
dry during that very hot week.    Going south from KM I heard about that from
several people, so on Saturday
when I got to my car at Walker Pass I bought all the
bottled water I could find in Weldon (both gallons!) and hauled it up to
Bird Spring Pass, only to find that she'd just gotten there to resupply
a few minutes earlier!   It was quite a haul in a passenger car, and
it overheated, and to restart it I had to coast it down the hill but
fortunately at the bottom it had air-cooled enough to restart.
Then I went over to Kelso Pass to unload the rest of the water, and
caught up with Mary resupplying there too!     So I drove out along
the old Jawbone Canyon route from the 1974 guide and by the looks of it,
no matter what you think of the current route, it's quite an improvement
over the old one.    I get thirsty just thinking of it.

Anyway just serving as an alternate for those two cache sites would be
a major contribution for anybody living remotely close by.
As long as you have a 4WD or an old car you don't care much about.
(Kelso Pass road is paved from the north though).