[pct-l] guidebooks and paperwork.

[david_tibor at yahoo.com (David Tibor)]

from my 2004 thru-hike, i'd say this about paperwork:

1. databook - definitely bring it. it's the easiest
and best planning tool. easy to calculate distances
and elevations. indispensable and compact. this was
the main item i wanted in my pocket in a ziplock to
refer to. the elevations make it easy to plan for
climbs and descents, plus recalibrate your barometric
altimeter as necessary. it's how you quickly know
where you want to get to, how many miles, where you
can camp before dark, where you will cook an early
dinner with water, and everything else.

2. guidebook - also indispensible. i loved the reduced
topos, and the narrative. i tended to read the
upcoming day's pages before bed the night before.

3. yogi's guide - very helpful in town, but i quickly
stopped putting trail sections in my pocket. the
databook and guidebook pages were more than enough.

4. water update - helpful in socal, especially early
on before i learned to more trust my instinct about
water sources via the topo maps and guidebook entries,
including knowledge of the late winter and spring's
rainfalls (as a biologist and californian, i suppose i
might have a leg up on others in this regard). i found
i referred to it less and less as i went on through
socal, but it's a great item to have. (as an aside, i
disagree with the concept of water caches, so i didn't
care too much to know about them. caches that are
advertised to hikers, (especially those unfamiliar
with hot socal temperatures and dry landscapes) that
end up being empty = potentially large problems... i
ran across numerous instances in 2004)

5. town book - bought it, very stop carrying it and
sent them home. i found it out of date and useless
compared to yogi's town info. the town's are typically
small and easy to figure out anyway.

i made up packs of paperwork ahead of time, based on
food and bounce-box drops, and thus never carried too
much paperwork at once. i would always spend a few
minutes each night after dinner to pull out the next
day's paperwork (databook, guidebook, water pages in
socal, and yogi's if i was getting to a town that day)
and put them into my ziplock that i always kept in my
front pocket. i didn't burn my used pages like many
people, but instead mailed them home after use. i like
having all those bent and folded and spindled and
dirty pages now, post-hike.

like many people have said, you often barely or don't
need the guidebook to follow the trail (baring sierra
snow), but i found it interesting to follow along. to
read the topo as i hiked often, look at the features,
the climbs and descents, and read the guidebook
narrative. it led me along down the path. of course,
there are a few places where you can quickly go wrong,
such as two hikers walking out of the san gabriels and
down into the mojave after missing a hard turn without
maps.

i did purchase yogi's guide and read the intro
materials before the hike... it was helpful. however,
i had perused the PCT-L and archives for a number of
months ahead of time, and had learned tons of info
from helpful posters to the list. also, i would
recommend "the advanced backpacker" by townsend as a
general reference of smart information about
long-distance hiking.

anyway, the paperwork isn't too heavy, split up into
sections, so carry what you need and want and have a
great hike.

i guess the bottom line is to just get to the border
and start hiking. the rest will sort itself out as you
go.

dave t.
2004.


		
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