[pct-l] Can you do it in 4?

[chwillet at indiana.edu (Christopher Willett)]

Yes, certainly.  And you can enjoy yourself quite a bit while doing so.
I was in a similar situation last summer and set out with the nominal goal
of making Ashland, maybe Cascade Locks.  I finished at Manning Park after 
105 days.  Will Tarantino was in the same boat and finished in 100 days. 
Birdie wasn't under any constraint and also finished in 105 days last
summer.  I took 7 full zero days and a bunch of half days off.  I took 
lots of breaks during the day.  The main thing is just to walk all day. 
I'd generally start around 6 am and would throw out my groundcloth
sometime between 8 and 9 pm.  I generally took maybe 3 hours of breaks
during the day, including a long lunch break, when I would cook my meal
for the day.  I was also in fairly good shape before I started and 
was carrying a light load, without food.

Because you'll be hiking much further than 21 miles on a typical day,
remember that you will need to eat more food.  I tended to carry around 3 
lbs of food per day and never had food cravings or other symptoms of a 
lack of calories.  It is entirely possible to carry enough.  One thing to 
think about is that your daily mileage will (and should) be lower when you 
start out (break in your body).  When you hit Kennedy Meadows, the trail
gets tougher and, despite your body being ready, you won't be able to push 
up more than about 20 miles a day, unless there is very, very little 
snow (navigation takes time).  Once you clear South Lake Tahoe, then 
you can start pushing.  From SLT north, I rarely (never?) had a full 
hiking day of less than 30 miles and really didn't feel rushed.

Good luck, you can certainly do it.  A good tactic might be just to set
out to hike California, with plans for Oregon and Washington.  If you 
get to Oregon in good style, keep going.  For more info about my hike, 
see http://mypage.iu.edu/~chwillet/travel/PCT/

Suge

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 barclayb@comcast.net wrote:

> So my real question, as a pct 2004 thru hiker who plans to attend Boston University in the fall as a grad student (and who therefore has to return by September), is:  can I really do the whole thing in 4 months?  I mean, it's averaging just over 21 miles a day.  i'm 23, i'll be with one other dude.  We plan to cruise, but I don't want to sprint my way to Canada.  I've heard stories of under 80 days (something I find sick and twisted, honestly), but it seems to me that my goal might be too intense.  anybody wanna reassure me?
> 
> and am i going to get screwed by mosquitos above California in July/August?
> 
> anybody feel me on this?
> 
> Bill.
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----------------------
Christopher Willett
Department of Mathematics
Indiana University
831 East Third Street
Bloomington, IN. 47405-7106
(812)-855-1883
chwillet@indiana.edu
mypage.iu.edu/~chwillet