I would love to thru-hike the PCT, but time, family, and job limit my opportunity. My responsibilities allow a section hike. Maybe Oregon and Washington one year and california the next. Any thoughts and suggested starting dates for an Oregon-Washington hike would be greatly appreciated. Also what is the total distance of the Ore-Wash section of the trail, I can’t seem to find it on the web. Thanks
Bones
Bones
These two states are about 950 total (450 OR and 500 WA). When is the best time to start? I entered the state around Aug 10th. Early Augsut is a good time to start since it puts you in with the thruhiker pack (if you want company). If you start too early then you will run into snow problems. You will have some heat but it shouldn’t last too long. Hope this helps.
Jason Lee
I’ll second what Jason Lee said. My wife and I did much of the Oregon section this past July. Heading north from Ashland on the 1st, with our objective being Cascsade Locks, the Siskayou were dry but pretty. Trouble was, by the time we reached the second day into the Sky Lakes Wilderness the on trail snow had become a major issue. Unfortunatly for our plans there had been a heavy snowfall in late April and worse still the high temps the first ten days of July were 20 F lower than normal. So mush of the spring snow hadn’t melted. We essentially had June conditions. Route finding was a real challange! Lots of exposed traverses with thretening talus/boulder fields below caused some very slow cautious hiking. A tough situation for Floridians in running shoes. So we began to hitch hike around probable snow areas and ended up doing a few days camping on the beautiful southern Oregon coast. All in all we did 230 trail miles and had a blast. My advice is to go no earlier than Augest.
Razor
And dont forget the mosquitos, I have read they are the worst during late June into July. I hiked through Oregon starting in early July and the mosquitos were insane. They tapered off towards the end of july and i have read in guide books that is generally the case.
Dan
The problem with Oregon is snow and skeeters anywhere from Sky Lakes north. Most of my experience has been in the Three Sisters Wilderness. I have hiked on bare ground there up to 6000 feet on the 1st of July, but this year I encountered considerable snow at 5000 feet at the same time. If the snow has receded far enough for easy hiking and navigation in July (and it is not raining), there will be loads of skeeters. I have friends who still talk about the clouds of skeeters I lead them into in July, 1981. They were much, much worse in early July, 2004. If you don’t want to deal with these annoyances, hike this area in August, the later the better. Hiking usually remains easy in these areas through September. The main nobo thru-hiker crowd comes through Oregon in August and they all contend with mosquitoes. I think they probably jog through most of Oregon and, consequently their journals seldom do Oregon justice.
Wayne Kraft