Travel

Hi folks, I am new to the outdoors magic forum.

Last year my wife and I completed the Continental Divide Trail in the USA. Its a long and wild hike (around 2,500 miles) along the length of the US rockies between Canada and Mexico. We were out there hiking for about 5 months.

I posted photos and other bits and bobs here ... www.pbase.com/briansolar1

If anyone is interested in the trail then please post here and I would be pleased to help!

brian

Hi Rick thanks for that.... should be ok now, maybe there was a problem with the pbase server www.pbase.com/briansolar1

 We did the PCT in 1998 and had a great time- what a fantastic trail.

CDT is different in lots of ways ; better scenery at its best, wilder, heaps of navigation fun, lots more wildlife and lots of variant options. On the downside there is more dirt and jeep track hiking and it can be quite lonely! In New Mexico (650 miles) we only saw a couple of other pairs of hikers (near a road) and met 2 other CDT hikers who we joined up with for a while. I calculated that we spent 55% of our time on the CDT and 45% on other wanderings.

brian

Brian,

I checked out all your pics and they were great. very sharp and well composed.  I still have to get all mine online and seeing how well yours have turned out might be the kick up the arse I need!

Was the 45% off trail intentional?  With my skills it would be more like 75%.  I even managed to wander off on the AT in 2004, and it's generally regarded as very hard to get lost on that trail.

 I've had a very bad case of post-trail blues this time, since I arrived home in October - only just managing to pull myself out of it.  Bummer!

 Thanks for sharing these,

St Rick

45 % off CDT trail. Yes our aim was to hike the most interesting scenery we could and we used the official CDT only as a base for our plans and didn't want to stick to it. Sometimes the CDT follows road where you can hike nicely up in the mountains.  For instance in the Wind Rivers Wyoming we followed a higher more mountainous line than the CDT which stays lower. The CDT is very different to the AT & PCT in the respect that there are lots of possible variants.  We possibly went for more than most however- although we kept to trail on the San Juans Colorado where many others didn't like the snow and road walked round.

Come to think of it, we started in New Mexico, hiked north, doing the Jim Wolf Columbus variant which meant that we didn't hit the official CDT until around mile 250 I think!

brian

Hello Brian,

we were looking to do a long trail maybe a 1000miles somewhere. We have done the middle bits of the Pyrenees Haute Route and would like more of that. We thought of the PCT largely because Chris Townsend eulogises about it. When we looked into it we were dismayed at the permits, form filling, regulations, etc. There also seems problems with bears that are worst where they are most habituated to walkers. Compared to the Pyrenees Haute route where you just arrive and walk where you like and camp almost without hindrance, where route marks only exist where other trails parallel it.

I got the impression that the PCT was a walkers motorway with wilderness either side. From that point of view the Continental divide trail especially if you take wilder options to avoid roads would be great. We would want to minimize road walking.

From that point of view how much officialdom will we have to deal with to walk the wildest  continuous 1000 miles of the CDT?

PCT

When we walked the trail in '98 we had next to no 'officialdom'. We got a permit by post from the PCTA when we started which did us for all parks etc and that was all we needed.  I would say that's very little hassle for 2650 miles / 4-6 months walking. The trail was quiet and of good quality both underfoot and scenery. You camp where you like. I would recommend say Washington (about 500miles) or northern California north of Walker Pass (maybe about 1000miles). They are both hard to beat and will be much 'wilder' than the Pyrenees.

CDT

We would have liked to have seen more people on the CDT! We met 2 other hikers in New Mexico (650 miles) and we joined up with them. Apart from that we saw some day hikers about 15min from the road and the rest of the time we were on our own. Glacier NP and the Wind Rivers have some hikers , outside those places its deserted. 

You need permits for the 2 main Nat Parks the trail goes through; Yellowstone and Glacier. We found the rangers helpful, interested in our trip and it was easy to sort the permits the day we started out through each park.

On the CDT, Wyoming (500 miles) and Colorado (about 750 miles)would be great hikes with lots of variety.

brian www.pbase.com/briansolar1

Hi Brian - nice pictures. The CDT is definitely on my list now!

  Bizarrely, I when I prepped for the PCT in 2005, I remember reading chris & jenelle's journal where they talked about you & your wife ( I think you were all lost in the snow together round Idyllwild). Before 2005, 1998 was the most recent high snow year so I was keenly reading anything I could find on the 98 experiences.

@ Derek

"I got the impression that the PCT was a walkers motorway with wilderness either side. From that point of view the Continental divide trail especially if you take wilder options to avoid roads would be great. We would want to minimize road walking."

I'd disagree with the impression. There were many stretches of PCT where we saw nobody, day after day. Granted, near trailheads at weekends in popular areas we'd see quite a few people - e.g. near donner pass we probably saw 50 people in a couple of hours. Then nobody for 2+ days...  see http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davidtoms/  From a roadwalking perspective my understanding is that many CDT hikers end up doing a lot of roadwalking (4-500 miles), vs about 6 miles total on the PCT.

You need one permit - a PCTA thru-hikers permit, which covers every national park/forest/etc. you might go through and absolves you of the need for all other permits. In addition, in the one region where you'd normally have to identify camping locations in advance on your permit (Desolation) it absolves you of this requirement as well. If you're worried about bears, then you'll struggle to avoid them in most of the US mountainous wilderness. There's probably 50 miles of the PCT where you might meet highly habituated bears, tho' we didn't see any at all. Habituated bears know what a bear canister looks like and leave it alone...

Brian - thanks for sharing your travels. Great photos and site(s)

I'm a little envious! 

I liked the sunshade!

Thanks for the comments Stove Man and Mole! I agree with your points on the PCT stoveman- walkers motorway is not a term that comes to mind - quite the opposite. Loved the pics as well, you are a fit looking couple & it takes me back.

chris & jenelle - yes we hiked with them off and on in Southern California. Great people. We 'flipped ' up to Canada to hike southwards because the snow looked too hard for us in the Sierra whilst chris & jenelle kept going northward and made it. I tip my hat to them.  We were frustrated to miss them in Oregon I think as our paths crossed in opposite directions. We heard on the (vibrant) thru hiker grapevine that we had just missed them in Ashland.

Thanks Mole for copying the picture, that shade was a bit of a lifesaver in the hot afternoon sun in a place called the great basin, southern Wyoming. The CDT has about 200 miles of flat hot jeep tracks through the basin. It sounds dull but ended up being a memorable adventure for us- quite different from the Scottish highlands!

Great photos. Thanks for sharing.

Brian (& Martina), 

Thanks for sharing your amazing  travels. You make it seem so easy! I'm sure it wasn't  easy all the way,  but whatever,  you are an inspirational couple.  One thing I have to ask though is to what extent you were able to camp 'wild' on the CDT. 

cheers, Ken

Hi Ken,

thanks for that. Yes the walking could be tough. The thru-hikers friend is variety of scenery. Where we struggled was in uniform forest where views were limited and the trees are similar. Lodge pole pine in central montana and in bits of colorado were the hardest for us- limited views, little wildlife, but still hot from the sun. Long distance hiking for me anyway is half mental and half physical- I find I tire when there is little to see or little change in scenery. Luckily most of the hike though was interesting and a pleasure to hike.

 Camping wild

One of the great things of the divide trail (and the PCT for that matter) is camping wild. Most of the trail you camp wild- the only exceptions are the 2 main National Parks the trail goes through- Glacier in Montana and Yellowstone in Wyoming. In both of these you need to reserve camping spots in fixed campsites for given nights. We did this over the phone the day before entering Yellowstone and in person at the day of arrival in Glacier. Although this sounds like hassle it was actually fun to meet some other hikers at these sites.

The rest of the time we just set up the tent when we got tired, found a water source or saw a nice spot. As the trail travels through public land almost all the way you can camp  where you like (within reason).

brian