[pct-l] PCT photos

[ukstoveman at hotmail.com (David Toms)]

Donna - thanks for the kind words on the pictures - Michele gets the credit 
(mine are more of the blurry snapshot variety).

Re mountaineering vs thru hiking - order of things that helped us:
1) Navigation - if we'd quit, it would have been becuase of the nav. Even 
with GPS, the mental effort was huge to continually keep track of our 
position and route, and trying to spot the safest and most efficient line. 
(We only turned the GPS on when lost or unsure or when we were in a real 
hurry to get to VVR). We found it was important much of the time to forget 
about the trail entirely, trying to follow where we thought it might go from 
blazes, tiny glimpses of it etc. usually threw us off route.
2) Comfort on snow - particularly axes and crampons. From a mountaineering 
perspective, there's nothing technical at all on the PCT - the Forrester 
avalanche slope was around 40 degrees (which feels near-vertical), the 
ascent up to Mather might have hit 50 at its steepest point.
3) Mountaineering timing. Getting up really early (4.45am) to travel when 
the snow was hard. This minimised our post-holing. However, to do this you 
really need crampons or it can be too icy so early.
4) Not really a mountaineering thing - fitness. Many of the early sierra 
thru-hikers that we met were endurance atheletes of some form - of the 8 I 
know, 4 had completed ultramarathons, 1 did 24hr mountain bike racing, 1 had 
done a marathon, and 2 I don't know.

Of course, for reference, Squeaky had no mountaineering experience and went 
through 30% faster than us, 8 days earlier.  He is, of course, superhuman, 
thus doesn't count :-) Determination outweighs most other things.

Dave

>From: dsaufley@sprynet.com
>Reply-To: dsaufley@sprynet.com
>To: dave@davetoms.com, pct-l@mailman.backcountry.net
>Subject: Re: [pct-l] PCT photos
>Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:10:39 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
>
>Dave,
>
>The pictures are great . . . glad to be able to see what conditions you 
>faced in the Sierras.
>
>I am curious; how would you, or can you, compare your PCT thru-hiking 
>experience to mountaineering expeditions?  What mountaineering skills in 
>particular (such as the obvious use of ice axe and crampons this year) were 
>of benefit to you and Michele?  Or are they just such different experiences 
>that there was little cross-over?  I'd seen other mountaineers in the past 
>who didn't fare as well as you and Michele did, and thought perhaps that 
>the disciplines were very different, but you two blew away that assumption.
>
>L-Rod
>

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