Howdy. I’d appreciate advice from (anyone really) but hopefully folks who have attempted a thru in the span of 3 to 3.5 months. I’m a student and have mid may to sept 1 and am wondering if a PCT hike in this frame will not be enjoyable and I should scale back. Regular 25-mile days were feasible for me on the AT but I’m curious if unpredictable trail conditions and distant resupplies make it foolish to try in so little time. Maybe the JMT? Maybe just forget next semester?
Zach
Hey Zach,
I guess you COULD hike it in 3 months if you wanted to but you have to think about what it is you want to get out of this. Are you into trail bagging? Do you want another completion certificate? Do you want the camaraderie of hiking partners? Do you want lots of alone time?
I try to explain the PCT as a length of string held in front of you. That string is your focus, the reason you’re out there. Now everything you see in you field of vision all the way to your peripheral is all the possibilities. I mean I learned how to ride a motorbike while hiking the PCT! That’s not part of the focus but because I allowed for the possibilities I feel I had more adventures.
I think that 3 months would cut out much of the possibilities. You would have to be very focused on your reason for being there, that is finishing, and not so much on the ‘side adventures.’
If you hiked the AT then you proved to yourself what you can do. Call this cake and eat it too. Personally I would hike for three months, love every minute of it and not worry if I got a certificate at the end.
The PCT is an incredible corridor of the best that Mother Nature has to offer. I don’t think it’s something to be squeezed into your schedule. Ultimately you have to HYOH. You are blessed with 3 open months which us working stiffs would love to have. Search your heart and ask honest questions about what this hike means.
Happy Trails
Puck
ray jardine did it in 3 months 4 days on his third go round. but the quickest itenerary he offers in his sadly out of print pct hikers handbook is 4 months. and ray is all about quickness. honestly i think it is all but unrealistic. but hell, use my naysaying as fuel for your fire if you choose. you asked for opinions, thats mine. four, although very fast, seems more within the realm of possibilities.
remember though distant resupply points are not as much as a concern for you, hermes, since you can walk right past many of them. you should try to find a copy of jardines four month itinerary, if you cant ill scan it and send it to you if you are interested. he includes daily averages and resupply points in there. its real handy if you are trying to keep focused on time. surprisingly, in the first two weeks he only has a 22 mile average with two zeros. looking at his itinerary it looks absolutely doeable, and if you are crazy you could maybe trim two weeks off of it. it will be a lonely hike.
but of course i agree totally with puck. were it me, i would just take the three months and do whatever i pleased. although i would probably end up on the beach like my last pct attempt.
milo
doing the pct in 90/105 days is doable in a normal year but as you know the snowpack in 05 is way above ave. so it could be a tough haul . However staring in mid May and perhaps skipping the sierras will be sometthing to think about.
MEADOW ED
3 to 3.5 months is no problem if you want to do it. I hiked in 105 days in 2003. My friend Will (now Pony Express) did it the same year in 100 days. Birdie did it in 105 days also. I had the best time of my life hiking the PCT and wouldn’t trade it for anything.
See http://www.pierce.ctc.edu/faculty/cwillett
where you’ll find an account of the trek and some bad pictures.
See also http://members.tripod.com/gohike/
for Dave Brock’s excellent write up of his 2002 hike, which was also on the order of 3.5 months.
The biggest problem you’ll find with doing a hike this way is from other hikers. They assume that their way is right, and can’t imagine anyone else’s possibly being correct or desireable. I tended to be hiking as the sun was coming up, as it was cooler then and the early morning light is spectacular. I also liked to hike in the early evening, up until sunset. Again, it is cooler and the light is amazing. So, this meant that I put in long days and big miles, even though I don’t have a fast pace and take a fair number of breaks. My days were all very intense and I can still remember special features of each one. I was focused on being out hiking, not sitting around camp or in towns, so I took few zero days. Rather than, say, 30 zero days (which seems common), I took something like 7. So, take my 105 day hike, add on 23 zero days, and come up wiith a hike that would have lasted a little over 4 months, which is rather common.
Just get out and hike. If you finish, fine. Else, it doesn’t matter much. Enjoy the time you have and don’t let others dictate your style of hiking. If you want to slow it down and hike 12 mile days, do so. If you want to cruise along at 30, do so. Just don’t constrain yourself one way or the other. It is your hike, and it is up to you to enjoy it.
Suge
I appreciate all the feedback on this – particularly the string analogy MILO. I am torn between just walking, absorbing all that beauty alone and sharing my trip w/ all the people who are on parallel journeys - locals too. Luckily this decision isn’t something i seem to make actively – it just works out. Funny you say that SUGE, as much as I’d preach letting people hike their own hikes, i felt a little bitterness when Pony express flew by me on the AT. As much as i want to think this isn’t a competitive endeveaor I think just seeing how easy it was for him undercut some of the accomplishment I felt? Something like that. I’m becoming more and more at ease with taking another semester off, at this rate i’ll graduate in 9 years. But what’s the rush? Milo when i have a chance i’ll search for that itinerary, thanks. Peace
Zach
Compared to other hikers, I don’t hike fast. I’m about 1/4 mile an hour slower than the people I’ve hiked with. I used to think I was slow, until one day Dewey said, “you’re not slow, you’re just hiking your own pace”. Those were powerful words that in a sense freed me from thinking I was something less than the other hikers.
As far as watching the “fast” people blow by you, think about what Chuckie V said on the PCT in 2002: “The first one to Manning loses.”
Those are also powerful words.
yogi
yogi
Chuckie V’s comment is exactly what I was talking about. According to his rubric, Birdie and I were the third biggest losers in 2003 and Pony the second. This is, of course, news to me as I thought I had a rather fun, pleasant hike and know that Pony and Birdie enjoyed theirs as well. Hiking the PCT, or any long trail, isn’t some zero sum game like checkers or ping pong. Enjoy the time you have and ignore those who would try to rate your hike according to their scale.
Suge
One of the unique pleasures of the backcountry is the expectation of the unexpected - having the ability to be diverted by new and interesting situations and places. Adherence to a strict, very compressed schedule is certainly doable, but everything has a cost. You might make it in three months, but you will certainly have had to pass on some great potential adventures.
booger
Sorry Suge, I was not trying to minimize your hike.
I think the statement “the first one to Manning loses” means that as soon as you finish the trail you go home, and your trail life is over. Yeah, I know you can return to a trail in another season, but as soon as you get to Manning THIS hike is over. And you lose your way of life as you know it right now.
The “faster” people get to Manning before the “slower” people do. So the fast people lose the day-to-day trail life first. That’s all. No harm intended.
yogi
yogi
I always felt that its much more diffcult to excel in being slow than in being fast. There are only a handfull of hikers born with the genetics that enables them to average 35 miles a day on the whole trail, so competition for the “fastest hiker” title is easy, while you’ll have to beet so many more competitors for the title of “the trail slowest hiker”… 
Seriously, one of the best things about the P.C.T. is that within a few days of strating in Mexico, you will find yourself in the bunch of people hiking your own pace, and slower and faster hikers will be behind or ahead of you for the reminder of the trail.
Roni
(The proud achiver of a 9.5 month continous A.T. Thruhike and the holder of the “19 consecutive zero-days in one shelter” record)
roni