[pct-l] Re: pct-l-digest V1 #1127

["William M. Stenzel" <manjovin@jps.net>]

>
> Subject: [pct-l] Early Season Sierra
>
> I'd like to ask Will and Henry why you chose to enter the high sierra so
> early? Was that by choice? Did you just sorta end up there at that time? Did
> you want to be the first through? Was it mere coincidence? Inquiring minds
> want to know. Well at least I do.
>
> - -T

A kind of answer:

    Combination of ignorance, wishful thinking, and following established advice.
You're hiking along through the Tehachapi's and extreme southern Sierra and it's
like 100 degrees. There isn't even a patch of snow. Right before Walker Pass, you
get this crazy view of terrifying white jagged peaks and you think, "Wow, the PCT
can't go up that high," even though you know it does. The guidebook suggests hiking
a few days past Kennedy Meadows to see what the snow is like, and even up around
11,000 feet, I didn't run into too much until turning that corner and seeing
Forester Pass for the first time. From then on, it was a whole different hike, a
hybrid distance mountaineering.

The Jardine schedules (boo! hiss!) put you up into the Sierras very early. I think
it's because they were sketched out during the drought of the 80's. Who knows? Then
there's the inaccessability of the Muir Trail. It's simply hard to imagine that
there would be so much snow in the mountains when the temperature soars over 100
just an hour drive away. I remember getting completely lost, sitting in my tent high
on a rock wall with a driving snowstorm outside -- I got this Fresno radio station
and they were talking about clear skies, temps to the high 90's, etc. California is
crazy!
      Kennedy Meadows is not a good place to make your decision about jumping off
into the Sierra -- but it's the logical place to do so. Hard to decide whether to
prepare for Himalyan conditions sitting in a hotel in Tehachapi or Mojave, but
Kennedy's got no phone, no way out but an enormous hitchhike, no hotel, etc.
    So many people (Meadow Ed, the people at the Kennedy Meadows store, other
hikers) gave me good advice to slow down and not attempt the Sierras so early, but I
went ahead and did it anyway. Now I give advice to others not to try the Sierras so
early, but I bet they'll go ahead and do it anyway. Viva la differance.

will

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