[pct-l] SOBO

[spiritbear2k at hotmail.com (Ginny & Jim Owen)]

Junaid asked:
I know lots of folks flipped this year and did big pieces of the trail SOBO 
because of the weather.
During a normal year though, what is the motivation to go SOBO instead of 
the 'standard' NOBO?

------junaid #41PCT2006

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There aren?t usually a lot of southbounders, and it seems that few of the 
ones that start south  finish as a thruhike. (They may go back later.)  We 
only met four thruhiking southbounders, who all started on June 15, plus a 
wannabe yoyo hiker, heading south, and I don't think any of them finished. I 
think the let down of  700 miles of desert after the Sierras gets to them.  
I think most start a SOBO hike because of timing issues ? e.g. they can?t 
start until school gets out or a job releases them, sometime in late May or 
early June.  That is really late for starting a northbound hike, and the 
total solitude, lack of water and extreme desert heat would make a start at 
Campo in mid-June a fairly miserable experience.   Some late starters just 
start farther north (i.e. Walker Pass or Kennedy Meadows) but that still 
leaves the anti-climax of returning to the desert stretch after reaching 
Manning Park.  I don?t know how many go back and do that.

Ginny

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