The Pacific Crest Trail. Brian Johnson
reached town mid-week sometimes needed time to organise supplies. Others spent a day with a husband or girlfriend, waited for another hiker to catch up or took time out to attend a family occasion including weddings and funerals, or to visit attractions such as Las Vegas or the Quincy Music Festival.
Other reasons to take a zero day might include the fact that you’re reached a lovely place in the wilderness that you can’t bear to leave in a hurry. Perhaps the comforts of town – hotel beds, showers and laundry – are too tempting. Or perhaps you want to take a zero day for no other reason than everyone else is doing the same.
There are plenty of reasons to avoid zero days. They can be very expensive: someone calculated that the average hiker spent $100 at Vermillion Valley Resort in the Sierra Nevada. Most people who quit the trail do so after a zero day, particularly at Warner Springs in Southern California, just 110 miles from the start. But the most important consideration is that every unscheduled zero day you take means that you have to hike an extra hour or more each day for the next week to make up the lost time.
Before you set off think carefully about your zero day policy. It is best to produce a schedule with very few zero days but one that is fairly easy to achieve. You can then earn your zero days by getting ahead of schedule and enjoy them with a clear conscience.
Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick-Off
A kick-off party is held every year, on the last or penultimate weekend in April, at Lake Morena campground, 20 trail miles from the Mexican border. The whole campground is booked for the weekend and the party is attended by past and future PCT hikers, as well as that year’s aspirants. A large number of trail angels will also be present. The kick-off – known as ADZPCTKO – is a good chance to meet fellow hikers and pick up information about conditions and things such as water caches on the trail. There will also be organised talks for your education or entertainment.
There are good reasons for attending the kick-off if it fits into your schedule. However, there are also dangers in attending. The timing of the kick-off is about right for those doing a relatively slow thru’-hike and for section-hikers. Faster thru’-hikers will, however, find that they reach the High Sierra much too early.
Ladybug and Ancient Brit at the PCT’s southern terminal, Campo (Section 1)
At Lake Morena, around kick-off time, it will be relatively easy to find someone willing to give you a lift to the Mexican border, tempting you to slack-pack the first 20 miles to the campground, either before or after the kick-off party. Covering that mileage on the first day, however, is a recipe for disaster even if you don’t have to carry your pack. It’s a great way to get blisters and there is the danger, if you are slack-packing, that you won’t carry enough water. After the kick-off, when you leave Lake Morena, you will be with a large group of hikers. Do you have the discipline to go slow? Or will you find yourself dragged along at the excessive early speeds of others? If you are at the back of the pack, you might find that hikers just ahead of you have emptied the water caches.
Some hikers leave Campo well-before the kick-off and get a lift back from Warner Springs or even further up the trail, while others leave from Campo on Wednesday or Thursday and arrive at the kick-off party after a gentle start. Both strategies could upset your hiking routine too early in the journey.
If you intend to be at the kickoff, the best thing would be to get a lift to Campo after the party, to start your hike properly. That works best if the dates fit in with your schedule. For details of the kick-off, see www.adzpctko.org.
Start date
Ideally you would decide your start date as late as possible, so that you can adjust it depending on snow levels in the High Sierra. Websites given in Appendix B should enable you to keep a check on snow levels throughout the winter. In a high snow year many hikers start too early for the conditions. However, in 2016 the PCTA introduced a daily limit of 50 permits per day from Campo, with online applications accepted from February 1, so early application is recommended.
The key date isn’t when you begin but when you reach Kennedy Meadows at the start of the High Sierra. Ray Jardine’s suggestion is that, in an average snow year, you should leave Kennedy Meadows on June 15, known as Ray Day. You will still find some snow on the higher passes but most of it will have melted and water levels in the creeks will have started to drop. Snow melts extremely quickly at that time of year and even a week’s difference in start date can make a tremendous difference to the snowpack.
In a high snow year it would be best to leave Kennedy Meadows at a later date. In 2006, even the beginning of July was too early. Obviously the later you leave Kennedy Meadows, the later you will arrive in Canada. In 2006 hikers were still reaching Manning Park at the end of October though that was preferable to hitting the High Sierra too soon.
In a year of low snow levels, hikers who have opted for a schedule of between 160 and 180 days might prefer to leave Kennedy Meadows a little earlier so that they reach Canada a little earlier. Appendices D1 and D2 give finishing dates for different schedules assuming you leave Kennedy Meadows on June 15.
Once you have decided on your Kennedy Meadows departure date, work back to determine the date on which you should leave Campo. For example, if you plan to take 50 days, including zero days, to reach Kennedy Meadows by June 15, you will start about April 26 – it isn’t just coincidence that that is the approximate date of the kick-off party.
Fuller Ridge, in the San Jacinto Mountains, on April 30 2006 – too early to start! (Section 8)
Another consideration will be snow conditions in the San Jacinto Mountains, which you reach during your second week. The trail contours on steep north- and east-facing slopes, where snow can persist into late April. Those who start the PCT in early to mid-April might find dangerous conditions on those steep slopes and navigation can be very difficult if the snowpack is continuous. However, in a low snow year, the trail could be clear by early April.
Hiking north-to-south
Only a few hikers attempt to thru’-hike from north to south each year. In an average snow year the PCT in Washington won’t be free of snow until late June, even later in a high snow year. In North Washington the trail often contours on steep slopes, the most difficult and dangerous terrain to cross in snow conditions. Crossing creeks in North Washington can also be a serious problem if you start too early.
If you are considering hiking south, therefore, you should consider starting about July 1 so that you finish by the end of November. That means tackling Washington in July, Oregon in August and Northern California in September, which is fine. You would then pass through the High Sierra in October, a time when you might expect some storms. You would be unlucky to have the first heavy winter snow but you would be cutting it rather fine. You will have supply problems because most of the facilities in the High Sierra will have closed and you might need to hike into the night occasionally to get in your mileage, which will certainly test your navigational skills. November could be a good time for hiking in Southern California, as long as you’ve had rain to replenish the creeks and springs and as long as you haven’t got deep snow in the higher mountains.
Basically a north-to-south thru’-hike is only for experienced long distance walkers who have good knowledge of the PCT or are super-fit and intend to do the trail in three or four months. There is an additional legal problem as there is no easy procedure for gaining permission to enter the US from Canada along the PCT. This guidebook assumes you are hiking from south to north.
Flip-flopping
Some thru’-hikers reach Kennedy Meadows too early. Rather than face deep snow conditions or wait for it to melt sufficiently, they decide to head to Northern California and return to the High Sierra later in their hike. That is not a good idea, however, as the High Sierra is the easiest PCT section to traverse in snow. If there is substantial snow there, there will also be snow in the mountains of Northern California, Oregon and