[pct-l] Horses and thruhikers

[Owen <jrowen@ibm.net>]

Tom Reynolds wrote:
>re: [Horse packing resupply] would be contrary to the entire reason for
>thruhiking.
>
>Why? I would think that hiking the entire trail without leaving it would be
>the ultimate. Your reports indicate that you have a great time during
>resupply sidetrips but you don't need to hike 2,700 miles to enjoy an
>all-you-can-eat barbaque.
>
>Tom
>
>PS: Yes I know that I don't understand thruhiking. That's the problem. If
>I, a confirmed backpacker, doesn't understand where you are at, how can
>normal people who hike zero?



Tom - 
You asked a good question - it deserves an answer.  But te;; me - are
you implying that I'm not normal?  Well - you're probably right.  :-)

I think you know more about at least the mechanics of thruhiking than
you're admitting or maybe than you think you know, but the mindset may
still be a little murky.  But then that's murky for a lot of people,
sometimes even for thruhikers.  As an example of the difference in
mindset, let's use some of your words - with a twist: if you want to
hike 2,700 miles, you need to enjoy all the all-you-can-eat barbeques
you can find.  :-))

Now - bj implies that there are masses of thruhikers who are using horse
packers for resupply.  So let's take a look at first the pragmatic side
of thruhiking and then maybe some philosophy.  And we'll see how it
stacks up against her implications and maybe we can answer your
questions.  Let's start with the ground rule that I'm gonna talk about
thruhikers - period.  In great part because that's what I know and
care about. 

Let's start with what a "thruhike" is - this is how I  recently defined
it for another group (yeah - the definition of what "IS" is) ---

>You can find a lot of definitions out there, but my personal definition of
>a thruhike is "the act of  walking the length of a long trail from end to
>end within one year" (or one "hiking season").  For present purposes,
>a "long trail" is any of the three major hiking trails in the United
>States - the AT (Appalachian Trail), the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail)
>or the CDT (Continental Divide Trail).

>IMO a thruhiker is someone who walks from Maine to Georgia (or Canada
> to Mexico) or vice versa on one of the three major hiking trails in the US
>(i.e. - performs a "thruhike).  Pack or not, blue-blazes or not, supported
>or not, running, walking, crawling, in one direction or both, North-to-south
>or vice versa, whatever - no restrictions EXCEPT ---- yellow-blazing
>(hitchhiking or riding around large sections of the Trail) particularly with
>no intent to go back and hike those sections.  "Yellow-blazing" means that
>person isn't walking and cannot, therefore, logically claim to be a
>"thruhiker". 

Basic, simple - and doesn't preclude resupply by horse if that suits
your fancy.  But that's  not the whole story.  One of the corollaries is 
that thruhikers "hike their own hike".  And that means that, with a very
few exceptions, a thruhiker is NOT on a strict schedule.  Yeah, most of
us
start out with one - and it's a handy tool for planning purposes.  But
as someone once said - "No battle plan survives first contact with
the enemy".  Nor does a thruhiking schedule generally survive the first
week on the trail.  A thruhiker may plan for 18 mile days - and do
20's - or 30's.  Or get blisters and do 12's.  Or spend a couple days in
a hospital.  Plays hell with a schedule, doesn't it?  :-)

Now let's take a look at the horse packers side of it - if they're gonna
resupply someone, then that someone has to be at a particular place
at a particular time.  They do, after all, operate on a time basis as bj
pointed out - and they're not likely to wait two days for that thruhiker
to show up.  Provided, that is, that he's not already long past that
point. While a thruhiker may make that kind of schedule over a short
time
period (a week?), it doesn't work well if you're planning a month or
two in advance.  And that kind of resupply would necessarily have to
be made long in advance, because it requires planning - arrangement
with the horse packer, delivery of the resupply to the packer - and
then to the trailhead, payment, etc.  You don't do that kind of planning
"on the fly" while you're on the trail -  you do that before leaving.
The idea that a thruhiker would plan a resupply via horse packer is
ridiculous simply from a time and schedule aspect.

I know - maybe bj's idea is that the packer could leave the resupply at
a particular bear box in the backcountry. I don't think so - there's no
assurance that the thruhiker won't have passed that bear box 3 days
before the packer gets there - or maybe they'll never get there at all.
Bad planning.  And I don't think her supervisor would approve of that
kind of activity (blind food drops in the backcountry) any more than I
do.

Now let's consider another major factor - cost.  That may not be a major
factor for you - but most thruhikers are on a limited budget - I know
people who've thruhiked the AT on $800, although that's not the best way
to do it.  Most thruhikers make it on $3000 - $4000 (or less).  As
someone once said - thruhiking is the most fun you can have for the
longest time on the least amount of money. Tell me again - what does
a horse packer charge for a resupply in the backcountry?  $100? More?
Sorry, guy - no sale.  I can go into town and have a really good meal,
get a shower, do laundry, have a quart of ice cream and a couple beers,
make some telephone calls and maybe even sleep in a bed and have
breakfast for the same price.  You think I'm gonna pay a horse packer -
and miss a town visit, too?  I don't think so.  From a financial
viewpoint, horse packer delivery is ludicrous to a thruhiker.

Now let's talk a little philosophy - The basics of a thruhike are
simplicity, flexibility and freedom.  When you reduce your material
possessions to what you can carry on your back, life gets prettty
simple.  Flexibility is required to deal with the thousand-and-three 
problems and irritations of daily life on the trail - like heat, snow,
mosquitos, equipment malfunctions, partners that go home,  an
appetite that would do credit to a hungry grizzly,  etc. Freedom is
making your own decisions about where and when to camp and how
many miles to put down tomorrow, it's spending an afternoon watching
the clouds and then hiking at night, it's doing your first 30 mile day -
when you're ready (not because you have to be somewhere),  it's a
lifestyle and an attitude.

Now - just for grins - let's say I wanted to use horse packers for
resupply on my PCT thruhike.  First I'd have to make arrangements 
with the horse packers (including times/dates/places/weights), I'd 
have to pack the resupply packages (being careful to not exceed the 
weights I arranged with the packers), mail them to the horse packers, 
pay for them - and then worry about it.  And  I'd be tied to a
schedule.  If I wanted a schedule I could stay home and go to work every
day.  

That process certainly isn't simple - nor is it cheap.  It also violates
the flexibility clause because I'd be required to use the food that was 
in the resupply package - even if I was so sick of corn pasta that I 
gag just looking at it.  (No - I don't and won't use corn pasta).  It
also violates the freedom clause - because if I don't make it to the
prearranged pickup point, then I forfeit both my food and the delivery
fee.  So I don't have the freedom to take an extra 2 days or a week to
get to the pickup point - or to pass the pickup point 3 days early. 
There's no simplicity - no flexibility - and certainly no freedom in
that arrangement.  Therefore - as I said before - it violates the intent
and spirit of thruhiking.

There's also the matter of "self-sufficiency" - and I know just how
dependent most thruhikers are on town stops, so don't give me the usual
line.  But there are few people in this country who are closer to being
really self-sufficient than a thruhiker on the trail.  Some of us prize
that little extra bit of freedom. And there are those who envy it and
would take it from us.   

There's also another problem - the horse packer would deliver the
package AS I PACKED IT.  What would bj like me to do with the
packaging - carry it for the next 100 miles maybe?  I don't think so.
Or maybe she'd volunteer to come pick up the pieces?  I don't think so.

Now - there's another point that she misses - she says:

< I don't think "chunching the numbers" works very well in determining
<who's hauling what and why; there are just too many variables. Just
<because a "typical" pack animal may be limited to a maximum of 150 lbs
<doesn't mean he will actually be carrying it (or even half that!), you
<see. Depends alot on the bulk/balance of the panniers' contents, the
<individual animal  (on a particular day/trail), logistics of the trip,
<etc etc. And a haul may include mounted clients, a resupply for a
<thruhiker, camping gear for a church group, _and_ garbage being taken
out
<from a fishing camp, etc etc. Not all pack strings are identical, just
<like not all hikers have the same story, no?

And one word covers that --- bullfeathers.  First, because there aren't
that many factors involved - I keep track of a lot more than that every
day.  And I think you, as a business owner/executive, do too.   If
someone wants "too many variables", try remote operation of an 85 MB,
8-channel Enhanced Thematic Mapper with a 408 GB Solid State Recorder
and a variable 75-300Mb downlink through a half dozen ground sites -
and then add the ground processing facility throughput restrictions
as a feedback on the scheduling process.  And that's the short takes -
so don't give me this "too many variables" stuff.  Determination of
what goes in and out of the backcountry via horse packer is a
simple-minded process that any third-year undergraduate business
student should be able to outline without even working up a sweat.

More than that, any business that doesn't keep track of the numbers
(specifically - what they're hauling, where, when, how much, for
who, how long it takes and  how much it costs) is rapidly headed for
extinction.  Those numbers ARE available and some fairly simple
analysis would establish traffic/weight patterns which could then
be related directly to trail damage.  And that's not even a medium-hard
problem.

Now --- let's try that again - how many 99 PCT thruhikers want to do
their resupply via horse packer?  

Horses - I'm not even gonna get into that.  Some people know where
I came down in the Pennsylvania horse wars - but I'm not gonna spend
the time debating horses in the Sierras when others know the subject
(on both sides) better than I do.

Walk softly in that horse shit,
Jim

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