[pct-l] '97 and '97 hiker numbers

["Chris Bailey" <hikertrash@earthlink.net>]

Sly asked:

Does anyone have figures for the last few years on the number of hikers
that
have started?  I know the Data book has figures for '94, '95, and '96 when
it
hit a 100 with a 60% completion rate (that's encouraging!).  


I have the following anecdotal information:

Meadow Ed wrote me:

"I only met 75 people going northbound this year ('98) compared to twice
that number in '96 and '97.  But I did run into 7 southbounders, about the
same number I saw last year.

"Combining my names with those Jeff came up with we have about 52 names of
thru-hikers (for '98) but this includes the 9 who are going to Mexico, I
hope.  Still that's 43 people that flipped ahead or stayed on the trail all
the way to Canada.  Compare this with 71 in '97 and 64 in '96 and then to
the lowly 10 in '95 and you realize this was not so bad a year after all in
spite of the snow  That puts it at 47 people in an average of 4 years."

Meadow Ed is somewhat of an authority on who has been on the trail the last
few years.  I bet his numbers are pretty accurate.

Jenelle and I revisited the Sauffley's in Agua Dulce this past December and
I counted the names in the register in their guest house.  They hosted
about 110 hikers in '98.  Not all, of course, thru-hikers and of course,
not everyone who went through Agua Dulce stayed with them, but still a
pretty impressive effort on the Sauffley's part.

I don't know how PCTA compiles the numbers for the data book, but based on
Meadow Ed's numbers (factoring in early attrition rates) and other info,
I'm guessing that there are close to 200 starts each of the last few years?
 I don't know what percentage of those are thru-hike attempts as opposed to
long sections.  Anyone have other guesses?  I know that in '98, lots of
folks had signed in at the Monument prior to April 26th (about 30-35), who
we never heard from (in registers, I mean, not life ;-)) again and it
seemed that the real wave started later than us last year. 

FWIW,

Chris.
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