I’m sure this is one of those over-worked questions, but, in general, what are the optimum start dates for either sobo or nobo hikes? Rough dates are fine. Thanks.
McIntyre
Start dates? - Continental Divide Trail
system
#2
Northbound - start at the end of April so you reach Colorado (about 700 miles) in early June (June 5-10). You may have to flip north (usually to the desert in Wyoming - which gives you about 7-10 days before you hit 10,000’ peaks again) if you get to Colorado too soon. If you enjoy hiking big miles, then start in early May. If you want to start slow, then start mid-April. We had a low snow year last year in the San Juans and still had considerable snow leaving Chama on June 4. A lot of people who get there earlier end up roadwalking southern Colorado - which means missing one of the most wild and scenic parts of the trail.
Southbound - a lot of folks start the 15th of June - I would start later. You will have snow the first couple of weeks - it is a hard way to start a thruhike. The snow is more manageable a week or two later.
If you don’t want to push the miles, you might do what we did on our first thruhike (following the McVeigh’s example) and start in central Montana the 1st of June, hike north to the border for a month or so and then drop back to Butte and hike south. The trail around Butte follows a lot of jeep roads so is easy to travel even when snow covered. Our snow was intermittent until early July. This allowed us to take our time and do a six month thruhike. (We did a six month hike on our northbound hike as well.)
Ginny