[pct-l] thoughts on guidebooks.

[david_tibor at yahoo.com (David Tibor)]

My thoughts on the guidebooks:

The SoCal, NorCal, and OR/WA guidebooks. I think they
are essential. You might be able to find your way
along without them most of the time, but I liked
reading about the route the night before, or along the
way, and it has all the maps you need. I liked looking
at the map to see the ups and downs coming, instead of
the data book (all is revealed on the maps, and not so
in the databooks!). I know at least two people
navigating by data book alone that got VERY lost in
the San Gabriels, missing a hard left turn and heading
out of the mountains and down into the Mojave Desert.
Also, there does seem to be a slant towards geology in
the guidebooks, but there is also info on trees,
animals, and other interesting tidbits - it all makes
the trail more interesting.

The Databook. I didn't think about just how useful
this was until I was hiking. I liked to see how far it
was to the next water, the next pass, the next big
uphill or downhill, campsite, or whatever. It's easy
to plan your day, your pace to make it to camp before
dark, or whatever. You'll want this.

Yogi's guidebook. Very useful to plan out resupply
ahead of time. I made an Excel sheet with all my stops
and days/distances between, and it was easy to
formulate a plan using info in her guide. It was also
good to read over all the intro stuff before the hike.
Along the trail, I found I used the trail sections for
a while (mostly for historical water info), but didn't
used it much as I went north, except for town info.
Her town info is very helpful and up-to-date. Before I
got into town, I'd read over her info.

Town guide: Bought it, cut it up, put it in bounce
boxes, and almost never ever looked at it, and ended
up sending them home. Yogi's info was newer and more
complete.

-----------

As people have said before, separate the books into
sections for your drops or bounce box. Yogi has good
info on making this process easy. The best tip I heard
was to take them to a book bindery and get them to cut
the spine off, instead of tearing them apart - nice
and clean edge this way (thanks TW!).

A lot of people threw the pages away (or burned them)
as they went, but I actually sent them home here and
there. I kinda like having all those bent and folded
and dirty guidebook pages as a reminder of the trip.

I would carry each day's guidebook sections and
databook page(s) in a little ziplock in my pocket. In
SoCal I also had the water report and Yogi's sections.
Each night I would put the next day's set into the
ziplock so I'd be ready to go.

Peace out.

Dave T. (2004)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com