Long back country hikes

[stripgaga]

Hey guys. I'm curious because I've never done this before, but how is a long back country hike possible? I can understand a few days, but I was recently rereading this Half Dome hike book I have by Rick Deutsch and he was mentioning the trails beyond HD. One he mentioned was the John Muir trail which was something like 210 miles and he said people hike it, but it takes like a minimum of 4 weeks. How is that possible? What kind of supplies do you have to bring? Do you have to bring all your food or do people try and catch and eat their food or what?

[AlmostThere]

So you've never heard of the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachian Trail, which take months and are 2,000 miles plus? Or the CDT?

I could hike the John Muir Trail in a week and a half, doing 12-15 mile days. People have done it in less. 200 miles goes by in no time. All these trails have resupply points where one can send boxes or buckets of food and other supplies like first aid and batteries.

Thru hiking is not the same as backpacking. Having hiked most of the JMT but not all at once, I know that the folks who do the PCT (which shares parts of the same trail) are dogged and determined, with a different attitude than folks who are out for a week or less. Six months on the trail turns you into a lean mean hiking machine. There are plenty of books about long distance hiking - two I have read on PCT hikes are "A Blistered Kind of Love" about a young couple who do it with a single overnight trip as a preliminary, and "Wild" which is less about the trail than the emotional journey of a woman who's never backpacked before.

What's possible is limited only by your physical ability, stamina, and the challenges of the wilderness and how you are able to meet them. Oh, and resupply points.... It would be impossible to forage and backpack.

[stripgaga]

Yes I have heard of those trails but usually when one inquiries about something they don't understand, such as mathematics for example, if you don't understand algebra, you're not gonna ask about calculus or statistics to try and piece it all together. So I didn't care to ask about the Appalachian Trail because I've seen some documentaries about people who have said they've spent six months hiking the whole thing at once.

But since you bring it up, let's talk about that. So you say there are these resupply points, are these all across trails such as this and the PCT? I'm assuming you have to know exactly where these are so you can hike accurately to resupply?

[balzaccom]

Yes, that't right. Most people do the John Muir Trail in two or three segments, so they never have to carry more than about 8-10 days of food at any one time. And that's pretty manageable. They ship the rest of their food to one of the re-supply points, hike in, pick it up, and hit the trail again.

For the longer hikes, they just repeat this as necessary.

[AlmostThere]

There is a lot of info on the Pacific Crest Trail Association website on both the PCT and the JMT, listing all resupply points. And there are plenty of guides for both trails published and available. I've seen (and read) several at my local library.

The JMT has Tuolumne Meadows, Reds Meadow, Vermillion Valley Resort (at Edison Lake) and Muir Trail Ranch (at Florence Lake) with some options (expensive) here and there for packers to bring in resupplies to you at certain trail junctions, such as Kearsarge Pass (the pack station in Onion Valley does this).

You could also have a hiker friend come in with a resupply for you. I've talked to folks who've done that. I've also talked to folks who have done the whole trail without resupply, but that was before the advent of the bear canister requirements, when you could hang the food. (You can't now, for quite a bit of the trail.)

[orion]

with a good-sized bear can (not those black ones the park rents out) and compact food, and a bit of a lean diet, you can meander around the back-country of yosemite for about two weeks. no trail required.

[dan]

"Through hikers" (hiking the full lengh of the PCT or JMT) have special rules and don't have to carry bear canisters. That's what I read when picking up a permit for Kings Canyon this summer. They have a system of bear boxes along the PCT and JMT for their use.

But the bear boxes are NOT for food caching. All the bear boxes at Kearsarge Lakes in Kings Canyon NP have been locked because of abuse (by through hikers caching or arranging food caches in these bear boxes).

[AlmostThere]

The problem being that hiking from locker to locker and camping in those heavily used spots kind of sucks.

Having a bear canister for the JMT gives you the freedom to visit places like Gardiner basin, Darwin Bench, Davis Lakes, Goddard Canyon, and any number of peachy keen short side trips without issues. It's not hard to do if you have practice packing one.

[orion]

I have to agree there on the side trips. I quickly lost all interest in hiking the big trails after realizing how much better things were a few miles either way off the trail in northern Yosemite. If you need to say you did something, by all means hike those trails. If you just want to see some unspoilt empty wilderness, it is elsewhere.