suggestions?

Posted by: 222zpt

suggestions? - 03/17/12 12:05 PM

I am looking for advice about the PCT and or CDT, water, gear etc.
Posted by: balzaccom

Re: suggestions? - 03/17/12 12:10 PM

WElcome!

That's a big question (actually,more than one!) and there is a ton of great advice on these boards already. WHy not take the time to peruse them and see?

And many of us have websites that also offer tons of advice, which may or may not be applicable, depending on where you live, where you are planning to hike, and when you are planning on doing it.

poke around, please!
Posted by: 222zpt

Re: suggestions? - 03/17/12 01:11 PM

thanks for your link. I suppose I am primarily concerned with water issues. I have made some longer trips but am curious about the PCT and thru hiking it.
Posted by: aimless

Re: suggestions? - 03/17/12 01:17 PM

The majority of the PCT or CDT info around here will be found in old threads in the Long Distance Hiking forum, or in a few threads in Trip Reports. Easily the best info you'll be able to find will be on the PCT, because the CDT is far less traveled.

Try starting at www.pcta.org and looking at the archives of the pct-l mailing list. Then go to www.pctmap.net for free downloadable topo maps of the PCT with GPS traces and helpful notations. There are many PCT trail journals on www.trailjournals.com. Most PCT thru-hikers end up buying Yogi's PCT handbook.

The CDT does not have nearly as much organization for thru-hikers as the AT or PCT do. We have a recent CDT thru-hiker here, BrianLe. There are links to his CDT trail journal from 2011 in a thread in Trip Reports.

Good luck.
Posted by: BrianLe

Re: suggestions? - 03/17/12 03:14 PM

Quote:
"I suppose I am primarily concerned with water issues. I have made some longer trips but am curious about the PCT and thru hiking it."

If you have little experience at either the PCT or CDT, I suggest that you tackle the PCT first.

For either trail, if you get to the point of being pretty serious about it, definitely invest in Yogi's Guide. Ideal is to buy the latest version for the year you're hiking, however.

postholer.com has quite a lot of PCT-specific info, including a FAQ that will cover a lot of what you want to know.

The pct-l discussion group is typically pretty active, a good place to post questions and get answers, though in the past at least, I found at times a lot of volume of email relative to the useful information. You can also search through their archives, however.

Less volume perhaps, but often resulting in good answers/good discussion is the PCT subforum on whiteblaze.net, http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?416-Pacific-Crest-Trail.

For water issues in particular, hopefully AsABat still puts out his water report for the southernmost 700 miles. For that stretch, his water report is the most important "guide/map" stuff you'll carry. If you go there during typical NOBO thru-hiker season, there's significant support, but a person can also do it all on their own, i.e., not using water caches except for emergencies. On my trip I ended up using cached water just once, and that just as an alternative to some of the nastiest slime-green water I've ever seen; I could have skipped the water cache there too, but ... :-)

If you have more specific questions, post here or one of the above places; you'll get more answers from folks that have hiked the trail on pct-l or the whiteblaze PCT subforum. I think the latter is easier to use, FWIW.