Showing all 31 replies.
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No, but um stay away from the meth heads.
There was this guy who posted here a few years ago, when we had a decent actual thread about backpacking, saying he had done the PCT a few years prior to the thread, and had started hanging out with a specific group of young people, but then had a falling out when it became clear they were more interested in smoking meth than hiking. There were more details than that, but I forget now. Was one of the more amusing threads here.
My personal stance is the US has a lot of fun shorter 3-5 night backpacking trails, or even some 2-3 week trails and those are more interesting than devoting all your effort to one big trail, but obviously they are more work sourcing gear to particular locations and finding places to stay off trail and all that, but I think ultimately more interesting and rewarding.
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>>2865913
im going this year sobo of course july 17. Should be very easy to be alone, im not sociable either, its very easy to be to yourself on any trail really, its also really easy to find a group of hobos on heroin basically just always go sobo and its very unlikely youll find druggies as nobo is always more social so thats where they would congregate
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>>2865904
This chick is doing it. She leans straight into the bimbo aesthetic, and even has that bimbo inflection in her voice. She’s cute, shows off just enough of her body to hook in simps like me, does her hair and makeup before hiking, and brings real feminine aesthetic into the outdoors. It’s pretty unique.
>she’s faking it for likes
It’s an understandable reaction, but how many people fake thruhikes while they’re doing it? And if she’s faking she went to the trouble of soiling her socks and shoes, which goes 360° against the aesthetic she’s going for. Plus it’s pretty tough to fake a thruhike because you’ll get called out by the people who are doing it. It’s not like you don’t run into other people.
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You see this on trail
She’s friendly because pretty girls are nice
“OMG, I woke up under the trees because I recently got into cowboy camping! It’s, like, soooo fun!” ^_^
Puts on makeup
Makes a cute TikTok for the boys, being sure to show a lot of skin and stick her ass out
Hikes 25 miles
What do you do?
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>>2867801
You’re not the main character. You live in a society. The permit system spreads out the crowd and keeps the popular areas from getting completely trashed. The fact that you don’t understand this proves that you’re either retarded or brand new.
Gate keeping is objectively good. There’s no denying it. I’ve seen the lack of gate keeping first hand. We all have. Well, those of us who actually spend time outdoors have seen it. Anyone been to the Sipsey Wilderness? A complete lack of gate keeping has destroyed the place. Way too much human shit. Graffiti. Camp fires every ten feet. Beer cans.
Better yet, visit an AT shelter in GSMNP when the bubble is passing through. I’ve been there in late April and counted 27 people at a shelter designed for 12. I’ve heard that last year some of the shelters saw nearly 50. There’s no quota system or limited access. The only saving grace is strict enforcement of where people can stay (and those sites are trashed compared to what you can find off-trail of a typical National Forest).
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Don't do the PCT. Don't do any of the major contententail thru hikes. They've been ruined by influencers and are really just a big social media gap year thing now, with a whole support network of "trail angels" and "trail towns" and ten thousand people doing them every year, its even become a life goal for people who've never even backpacked or slept in a tent, it's barely /out/ anymore.
The PCT/AT have become to backpacking what like, climbing Everest is to mountaineering. Like sure it *sounds* impressive to normies who don't know anything, but to people "in the sport" it means you probably just had enough free time and money and tolerance for suffering, but you didn't know what the hell you were doing or even what a real accomplishment looks like for climbing. You probably haven't even heard of them. You're a tourist, an interloper.
Also most of these through hikes, like 85% of the trail is just absolutely fuckin' boring. Just slogging from point A to B and trying to pack miles in.
Instead, go spend a month in the Wind River range. Or the Bob Marshall. Or the Sawtooths. Come out to your car a every 8-10 days to resupply food and maybe move to a different trailhead.
Pick a wilderness area or mountain range and just go live out there for a month or two.
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>>2867927
I really need to know how she got sick to be honest. I saw a couple of her videos and she filters her water properly with the same sawyer filter I use, so how the fuck did she get sick from the bad water/ I really want her to talk about how she got sick, I do all my hiking alone and it would really suck if these sawyer filters are failing.
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>>2870377
I don't know or care about this thot, but FYI, pretty much all squeeze and/or gravity filters fail silently (you won't notice anything wrong) if they are ever exposed to subzero temperatures, like say overnight. If it's going to be colder out you should store it in your sleeping bag or next to your body, or just use a pump filter which doesn't have this failure mode.
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>>2870618
Sorry you Amerifats, I meant sub 32F / freezing temps. Basically ice forming in the filter element can break up the fibers and render it ineffectual.
Luckily(?) like 98% of illness from unfiltered water is either cryptosporidium or giardia, which both have an incubation period of like a week+, usually, so unless you're out for longer, you usually don't get sick until you get back.
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>>2870619
Sorry, more caveats
>98% of illness from unfiltered water is either cryptosporidium or giardia
... in alpine environments in North America or Europe (the only environments worth going /out/ in). If you're in some third world tropical shit hole, then yea that shit will fuck you up.
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>>2865906
That person was a liar. Meth heads aren’t spending weeks hiking down the PCT (or any trail). They’re staying close to towns or druggie hostels like Standing Bear and Four Pines on the AT.
Of course the most sketchy places you’ll run into aren’t established hostels or even towns. It’s the informal places where someone lets people stay on private land.
It’s a magnet for trashy would-be thruhikers who end up staying for weeks because they’re drawn to other trashy people, drug use, and being bums. Long time residents and drifters accumulate over time, well past hiking season. It transforms into a trashy type of commune. They usually don’t last more than a few hiking seasons before neighbors complain, the police get involved, or the property owner burns out.
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>>2870619
>>2870618
>>2870377
I don’t think it was a waterborne illness. I think she’s just making that assumption because it’s shilled so hard. Plus she thinks she should have felt better after coming down from a high elevation for a few hours, but she came down from -14,000 feet to only 11,600 feet. 12k is recommended for mild cases, and 10k for more severe cases. She was vomiting and disoriented according to the other hikers who found her, which is pretty severe.
Also vomiting isn’t all that common with most cryptosporidium infestation or giardiasis. You’re more likely to have very smelly, very greasy, explosive diarrhea. She didn’t mention that (but who would, lol).
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>>2865906
>My personal stance is the US has a lot of fun shorter 3-5 night backpacking trails, or even some 2-3 week trails and those are more interesting
The Pinhoti is 300 miles and it’s what the AT was 15 or 20 years ago.
>some hostels, but not many in most places
>almost no trail angels
>not popular enough to attract miscreants
>logistics can still be challenging
>not much of a bubble due to the unpredictable Southern weather and no established norm as to the best time in f year to start
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>>2870642
The Pinhotinis amazing. It’s right in that perfect middle ground. It’s not very popular, but popular enough that there are some accommodations. You won’t find too many blogs or YouTube channels dedicated to it, but there is a FarOut guide. Long enough to be done in a few long sections without sacrificing your entire life or done over several weeks as a thruhike.
The only thing that really sucks is the weather. Spring? Hot with torrential downpours and tornadoes. Summer? You’re out of your god damn mind. Fall is a mostly a coin toss. It could be absolutely gorgeous or 80° and 500% humidity. Winter is the same; either really nice or surprisingly cold (and humid).