[pct-l] Re: Defeat On The Pacific Crest Trail

[carlito at gmail.com (Carl Siechert)]

Sorry, I left off the intro. These are not my words...I'm just
forwarding an interesting blog post from the Highways West travel
site.


On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 13:21:11 -0800, Carl Siechert <carlito@gmail.com> wrote:
> It seemed like a good idea at the time: Vanessa Oklejas and Bob
> Moision, chemists at Salt Lake City's University of Utah, decided to
> hike the entire 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail ? from the Mexican
> border in Southern California to the Canadian border in Washington ?
> in 119 days.
> 
> They managed to get a sponsor (a protein-bar company) and had kids at
> SLC's Rowland Hall-St. Mark's School working as "mission control" via
> the Internet and the GPS/cell-phone gadgets used on the trail. But the
> whole thing ended in agony after 83 days. The pair gave up while
> hiking through the Sierra Nevada west of Lake Tahoe. Blistered and
> infected feet were blamed. Hiking 20+ miles per day is serious work
> even for those who've done it before, as Bob Moision did a dozen years
> back. (About half of all PCT hikers give up their dreams of a
> Mexico-to-Canada hike, and the usual result is shame and a whole bunch
> of crappy "hiking food" abandoned at post offices along the way.)
> 
> Complete article: http://highwayswest.com/archives/2005/02/defeat_on_the_p.htm
>