Mt Whitney Zone Forums The Chat Room Brett's PCT Adventure

Gotta love the Indian names! I'm pretty sure they are the one's who named the majority of WA! Glad to hear they are on their way again... I'll keep my feet crossed for dry feet!

By 7 PM they had descended into the next valley. Darren and Brett's Spots have sent from the same location.

Today's progress: Up and over Suiattle Pass, crossing from an eastward drainage to one flowing west. They have just crossed the Suiattle River, which joins the Sauk River, which joins the Skagit River, which flows into Puget Sound at Burlington, right across from Oak Harbor (...that's for StefanieG )

          mile     elev
         ------    ----
  Start  2569.5    2810
  End    2550.1    2880
         ------    ----
  total    19.4    3200 gain
                   3100 loss

Map location here

Very nice Dad! I enjoy knowing where and how everything is connected to where we are currently located! Thanks for the geography report .

He can leave the SPOT on for MONTHS and not drain the batteries. I've only changed mine once in the three years I've had it............................DUG

DUG, he's carrying the SpotII, and it came with a statement on how long the batteries should last -- about 1/3 the time of the older units.

I can see he's been trying to use the Track mode lately since several signals have come through. But I think he's carrying it in a pocket on the front strap of the pack. It must be facing too much of a downward angle, so it's not working.

Thanks for the info Steve - I won't be "upgrading" if that's the case. I carried mine on a front strap this last hike and it "worked" just as well as it always does. No signal got out until Mirror Lake on the start and showed us diverting 10 miles north on the way down. Still, it's good enough that when I called my wife from the Portal to tell we were off trail safely she replied - "I know, I've been following you".....................................DUG

It's a little hard to follow, but do I understand this correctly? 5 days and about 40 miles into this journey, a group ends up calling for help, and the SAR gets involved??

I'd be most interested in the TR on this. I remember from Bill Bryson's book on the AT:
==================
Every year, about 1,200 hikers set off from Springer, most of them intending to go all the way to Katahdin. No more than 10 percent actually make it. Half don't make it past central Virginia, less than a third of the way. A quarter get no farther than North Carolina, the next state after Georgia. As many as 20 percent drop out the first week. Wisson had seen it all.

"Last year, I dropped a guy from Florida off at the trailhead," he told us as we tooled north through darkening pine forests toward the rugged hills of north Georgia. "Three days later he calls me from the pay phone at Woody Gap -- that's the first pay phone you come to. Says he wants to go home, that the trail wasn't what he expected it to be. So I drive him back to the airport. Two days after that he's back in Atlanta. Says his wife made him come back because he'd spent all this money on equipment and she wasn't going to let him quit so easy. So I drop him off at the trailhead. Three days later he phones from Woody Gap again. He wants to go to the airport. 'Well, what about your wife?' I says. And he says, 'This time I'm not going home.'"

"So why did he quit so soon?" I asked.

"He said it wasn't what he expected it to be. They all say that. Just last week I had three ladies from California -- middle-aged gals, real nice, kind of giggly but, you know, nice -- I dropped them off and they were in real high spirits. About four hours later they called and said they wanted to go home. They'd come all the way from California, you understand, spent God knows how much on airfares and equipment -- I mean, they had the nicest stuff you ever saw, all brand new and top of the range -- and they'd walked maybe a mile and a half before quitting. Said it wasn't what they expected."

"What do they expect?"

"Who knows? Escalators maybe. It's hills and rocks and woods and a trail. You don't got to do a whole lot of scientific research to work that out. But you'd be amazed how many people quit. Then again, I had a guy, oh, about six weeks ago, who shoulda quit and didn't. He was coming off the trail. He'd walked from Maine on his own. It took him eight months, longer than it takes most people, and I don't think he'd seen anybody for the last several weeks. When he came off he was just a trembling wreck. I had his wife with me. She'd come to meet him, and he just fell into her arms and started weeping."

From Bill Bryson:
=====================
"I waited for Katz for three-quarters of an hour and then went looking for him.......My grandmother could have got this far, I kept thinking. Finally, I rounded a bend and there he was, stumbling toward me, wild-haired and one-gloved and nearer hysteria than I have ever seen a grown person.

It was hard to get the full story out of him in a coherent flow, because he was so furious, but I gathered he had thrown many items from his pack over a cliff in a temper. None of the things that had been dangling from the outside were there any longer.

"What did you get rid of?" I asked, trying not to betray too much alarm.

"Heavy fucking shit, that's what. The pepperoni, the rice, the brown sugar, the Spam, I don't know what all. Lots. Fuck." Katz was almost cataleptic with displeasure. He acted as if he had been deeply betrayed by the trail. It wasn't, I guess, what he had expected."

*LMAO* Thats about the time that he chucks the snack cakes over a cliff isn't it? "But WHY the little debbies?"

Not quite. Sorry to mislead. Of the three in the slower group, two had planned on only this one section of the trail.

I was worried early on, since their Spot locations showed they were making extremely slow progress. The faster hikers left them at the end of the second day.

The slower group continued on, and at the end of four days, were not quite half the total distance. But fortunately, there is a road up to Harts Pass -- pretty bad, I understand -- but it had been plowed clear of snow. Apparently it is known by the PCT hikers, because the faster group lost one and gained one member at that location.

Dan in the slower group had already set up with his wife, that if he used the Help button, that meant he wanted her to come pick him up. That is exactly what happened. It was not a SAR at all. He pressed the Help button, and we could see his progress moving down the road.

I got involved, though, by contacting the Forest Service and told them of the situation. They agreed to go unlock the gate on that road so Dan's wife could head up the road. They did NOT tell me it was treacherous, but that's what Esther told me after driving up part way. I also gave Esther the directions to find the road.

The pick-up became problematic when Dan and the two others met a vehicle on the road, and got a ride into Winthrop. He put his Spot away, or in some location where it would not send. He DID leave messages for Esther on her phone, but it did not work, except in Winthrop.

So at 9 PM, she called me, pretty upset, because she had driven the road and found no one. At that point I told her to call 911; not sure whether she did. But a little later, she called after she received the voice messages, so was able to find him.
---

Dan is still suffering with swollen feet from his ordeal. Not sure what caused that, but Esther blamed the icy cold slushy conditions they had to hike in.

Any excuse to quote Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" is worthwhile, even if there was some confusion. Best book I've ever read on through-hiking. You would stand in open-jawed amazement at Amicalola Falls State Park (gateway to Springer Mountain and the official start of the AT) seeing what some people come prepared to hike 2100 miles with (or without). A few years ago I saw a guy about 100 pounds overweight with an enormous pack. He had a Golden Retriever with very heavy saddlebags as well. I asked him what the dog was carrying. "Beer."

Chris and I agree: Katz tossing the Little Debbies was just priceless!

Steve, I don't know if you are aware of the PCT_L, the listserver, but it is a place where info flows. For example, today I saw this post, relating to southbound through-hikers:
===========

"I know the SOBO are not yet to the Suattle River detour. But as soon as anyone
has information that the 'log' is still in place, please let me know. I start
SOBO from Manning Park on July 21st headed to Cascade Locks.

Thanks,
Rodney Mruk"

http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/pct-l/

I've read Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods". I loved it! Hysterically funny in places, but certainly gives a good feel for thru-hiking a long trail.

Another excellent Bryson-style thru-hike book I've read was by a New Zealander named George Spearing. The book is called "Dances with Marmots". If you click on this link to the book, it also includes a number of reviews of the book -- all positive! Here is an excerpt from one of those reviews:


CaT

While we're on the subject of through-hiking and good reads, another worthwhile book is "Blind Courage". It's about Bill Irwin, the first (and I believe only, to this day) sightless person to through-hike the AT. He did this in 1990 with his German shepherd guide dog, Orient, and he did it solo. Let me re-emphasize that - alone and blind, hiking 2168 miles over 6 months through some of the most rugged, unforgiving terrain God ever created.

When I first read this book several years ago, I was flabbergasted. Blind Courage is probably one of the most apropos titles ever for a book. It would be an amazing feat if he had done it with a partner or a group, but alone?! To this day, when I'm out on the AT, I'll sometimes think of Bill and his ordeal. I'll close my eyes and try to walk to the next visible landmark I think I've got imprinted in my mind (yep, cheating), and I'll almost always run into or trip over something. After 50 yards at the most. This guy went 2168 miles in that state. Just incredible.

I was so impressed that in 2006, when I read that he was doing a book signing at Amicalola Falls State Park to kick off the AT through-hike season that year, I took my copy and drove 3 hours into the mountains just to get it signed and to shake his hand. Having a blind man sign a book is very cool in itself, but he also had a stamp of Orient's paw print, which he put in each book as well.

Give this book a try - I promise you'll never "see" a simple dayhike in the same light ever again.

Wow! Wish I could find the time to read those books!

Ken, I'll try to post on PCT-L.

Today's progress: They left the Suiattle River, up Vista Creek to a pass at 5900 ft. Likely more snow, staying above 5500' for over 2 miles in a north-facing bowl. Then they plunged into the Milk Creek canyon, stopping at 3700'. Milk Creek is likely milky, since it flows from both the Milk Lake Glacier and the Ptarmigan Glacier, less than 2 miles above their location.

          mile     elev
         ------    ----
  Start  2550.1    2880
                   5970 <-- pas
  End    2538.3    3700
         ------    ----
  total    11.8    3090 gain
                   2270 loss

Map location here

I think I'd have to tell Brett to get back on the trail too. He spent so much time organizing and buying and reading about this thing, also I don't want him to go back to his job even if it is the responsible thing to do, I despise his job. I'm praying things get easier for me without him and that he starts having lots of fun!!

Does anyone know if there is a web site which shows current conditions along the trail. For ex. I was trying to figure out how they would cross the Suiattle? Did they have to swim? Is there a bridge? It's frustrating trying to get info.

This weekend met a NOBO thruhiker on the PCT in the Sierras who told stories of really scary river crossings where they had to swim and if they didn't make it, well it would be a big problem. This was in California Sierra, where we have had 180% of our normal snow and the melt is high now. By the time the hikers we're tracking bet to California, the melt should be much lower.

Char, you can be pretty sure there is practically no information available, since the PCT hikers are the first ones to arrive at those obstacles.

We and other hikers can only find out about the conditions if the first ones write a report.

There are some northbound hikers posting regularly to their journals, and I picked up this story about one hiker losing ALL his gear into a raging stream crossing. (This as a result of his helping in the rescue of another hiker with HAPE.) He hiked 28 miles without his pack, hitched into Bishop, and spent $2000 to re-outfit himself. Links here: PCT hiker with HAPE

BTW, Char, have you seen any Spot signals from Adrienne?

Here is yet another wrinkle:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012259887_pcthikers02.html

Is Brett an illegal invader of the US?

As a matter of fact, I did get a text message from him mentioning that their stated backpacking plans when they entered Canada were questioned, but they got in anyway.

I don't like the looks of the info in that article. It sounds like the Border Patrol is setting up to go after PCT hikers in the future. And yes, technically, the hikers were illegal.

Brett and Dan did discuss the option of hiking north to the border, and then turning around and hiking back south.

Edit: Please click the "4" below and to the right to see the next page.