Re: [pct-l] easy pct?

[Karl Brandt <brandt@snf.Stanford.EDU>]

On Wed, 14 Oct 1998, Phillips wrote:

> on a few of the at lists, posters are saying that the pct is a fluff
> ball ( flame intended :-)) as compared to the at because the slope is
> soooo gradual. true? Jim ( bring on the flame war!)

What, we don't have enough silly flame wars here already? 

Comparisons between the PCT and AT get to be sort of ridiculous.
They're very different trails. There are things to love and hate about
both of them. Often times these comparisons are made by people who
only have first hand experience with one trail and are guessing about
the other. Having spoke with people who have done both trails, my
impression is that all things considered, they're about the same 
difficulty. But not having hiked the AT, I could certainly be wrong.

While hiking the LT this summer, I ran into several AT thru-hikers. I
was surprised to learn that they had an image of the PCT as being much
more difficult than the AT. Those folks on the AT lists may not be
representative of the AT community opinion as a whole.

As for the PCT being a gentle grade, ask a PCT thru-hiker about that
while they're hiking and they'll probably give you a pretty good rant
on how frequently they've hiked sections that are not within the
supposed spec. It was probably one of the more frequent jokes that we
weren't struggling up those grades because after all they were gentle
grades. :)
-Karl

*********************************************************************
Karl "Birdman" Brandt PCT97 LT98                       (650) 725-3686
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~kbrandt/

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