self/unsupported rules/guidelines?

[Wyoming]

I was looking through the section and the various descriptions of what constitutes support and so on. I have a question I think.

To be considered self supported one has to:

1. Get ones own supplies in town (mail or store).
2. Walk and not hitchhike to towns for supplies.

And here is my questions:

3. One MUST not accept Trail Magic as that is no different than support from a crew. (is that correct?)

4. Assuming 3 above, that by definition must then include not taking water from water caches as they are without question support (correct??)

If the answer is all of the above then it would be interesting to see in a dry year how one could get through the desert section of the PCT as Joe Camps is doing today.

[LoneStranger]

From http://fastestknowntime.proboards.com

Supported, self-supported, unsupported? What does it mean?

• Supported means you have a dedicated support team that meets you along the way to supply whatever you need. This generally allows for the fastest, lightest trips, and for an element of camaraderie and safety, since someone knows about where you are at all times.
• Self-supported means that you don't carry everything you need from the start, but you don't have dedicated, pre-arranged people helping you. This is commonly done a couple different ways: You might put out stashes of supplies for yourself prior to the trip, or you might just use what's out there, such as stores, begging from other trail users, etc.
• Unsupported means you have no external support of any kind. Typically, this means that you must carry all your supplies right from the start, except any water that can be obtained along the way from natural sources. This approach has also been termed "alpine style". The longest trip I'm aware of using this style is Coup's 20-day thru-hike of the Colorado Trail. For most people, carrying enough food for more than a few days to one week will be prohibitive. Unsupported also means unaccompanied!

These folks are where I look for definitions regarding such things and they seem to think caches you put out are fine for a self supported hike. They also don't prohibit trail magic or outright begging. The key is the support is unplanned or organized. That still leaves some question about taking water from an established cache site though I'd be inclined to think it would be allowed.

Unsupported on the other hand is completely limited to what you carried on to the trail plus naturally sourced water found along the way. This sort of hike requires not accessing water caches though I'm not sure how they feel about water tanks or old tires that catch rainfall. The water is naturally occurring, but the capture vessel is not.

[Wyoming]

I must admit I am not satisfied with that definition.

To me self supported cannot entail the use of trail magic, begging or any kind of cache (even ones you put down for yourself). That is supported to me. It is irrelevant who provides the support as it is still support.

The above rules would allow this. To take it to an extreme if one is allowed to put their own caches down it would take some time but one could preposition enough stuff along the trail at just the right points that one would never need to enter a town. That would be even more efficient than having someone meet you at road crossings to provide trail magic and water. In such a case the self supported hiker should be able to have by far the best time of anyone. One should then expect some very competitive person to do this sometime in the future and obliterate all the records.

You also open the FKT attempt up to gaming as folks who are not affiliated with the hiker just decide to go out to road crossings ahead of them and make them food and give them water. Thus non-dedicated people could easily deliberately provide support to the record attempt. In fact I would bet this has already occurred as I am always reading about folks going out to meet the hikers trying to get records and what better way to get to talk to them for a bit.

I guess by my way of thinking there have may not yet been any self-supported long distance thru speed attempts yet. Interesting.

[Venchka]

Perhaps the realistic terminology would be:
"Entirely self-sufficient in the style of Colin Fletcher's 1,000 mile summer in southern California and hike through the inner canyon of the Grand Canyon."
Mr. Fletcher spent a great deal of time carefully caching food and water for the most part under his own power. There may have been places in the desert that he accessed by vehicle.
He planned the routes. Set out provisions as needed. Walked the routes without publicity. Wrote the books.
No rules. Just do it.

Wayne

[LoneStranger]

Can't really see how setting out your own caches isn't self supported. The support you're receiving was provided by no one but yourself.

Accepting trail magic, begging or even buying other hikers food supplies on trail seems against the spirit of self support to me. My interest is really in unsupported endeavors so I don't get too worked up about the rules for the other categories. I agree that whatever rules are accepted will always have someone trying to game them which is why I prefer the simplicity of unsupported attempts. You either brought it or you can't have it

[gpburdelljr]

Seems to me that unless you grew/foraged/hunted your own food, and made your own clothes and gear from raw materials using hand made tools, you are supported.

[MuddyWaters]

If you are going for some kind of record, you need to match the standard set by the record holder.
Ie, if they ate trail magic, you can too.

If you arent going for a record, *** cares?

[Starchild]

Self supported thru hike (to me and only me) is that any support you used in your life to do this hike (knowledge, obtaining of money from society, caring (and wiping your ass as a infant) so you can one day do such a hike) disqualifies you from ever claiming a self supported hike. That is part of the great reality slap of the AT, if you do it on food stamps or if you do it paying a support crew you are doing it supported. The only question is degree.

Or to put it in other context>

A man asks a woman if she would be willing to sleep with him if he pays her an exorbitant sum. She replies affirmatively. He then names a paltry amount and asks if she would still be willing to sleep with him for the revised fee. The woman is greatly offended and replies as follows:

She: What kind of woman do you think I am?

He: We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.

Now if you are a newborn abandoned at Springer Mtn who somehow crawled to Katahdin - that is self supported.

Everything else is just negotiating price.

[Fredt4]

No one has the authority to define the terms. All hikes are inherently different, so unless you're competing against another on their terms, the comparison become meaningless. I admire Jennifer Pharr Davis' speed record, but I'm very proud of my own hike on completely different terms. As they say, HYOH.

[TheCheek]

Live your own life and HYOH. Unsupported? You mean, prepared all of your own food, made your own caches? Or grew the plants, raised the animals? Provided the sunlight, the sun? Invented your own DNA? Where to draw the line? It's a trail.

[Just Bill]

And here is my questions:

3. One MUST not accept Trail Magic as that is no different than support from a crew. (is that correct?)

That time of year!

To answer your question, FKT is the general source of the guidelines as stated above. A quote missing that I will paraphrase- 'Generally speaking- first known time- sets the guidelines for a given record.

One has to remember that these guidelines have been adapted from one community to another (running to backpacking) so better to look on a trail by trail basis.
Occasionally reality (or at least modern reality) is taken into account. So if the best (or only) place for water is a human provided source like a well, cache, etc. then it is what it is. Or more accurately- if the first one to set the time used the source- you can too.

Matt's list is a good one for long distance backpacking trails in general. Based heavily on Scott Williamson's list-http://sub60.wikispaces.com/About
"Self-supported" guidelines followed (Mostly adapted from the writing of Scott "Bink" Williamson):
•Walk into and out of resupply towns to purchase or pick up prepacked and mailed supplies.
•Hike as a backpacker, carrying all food and equipment between resupply towns.
•Follow the official AT route, no detours, road walks or alternates of any kind.
•Do not have anyone follow, or provide support in a prearranged manner.
•Do not get into a vehicle for any reason during the attempt.
•Honestly and thoroughly document the attempt.
•Practice Leave-No-Trace ethics.

In the case of Joey Camps specifically; he is trying to beat Anish's record.
As she was attempting to beat Scott's record- she followed his rules. So basically speaking- what you see above from Matt applies to Joey.

That simple.

One could impose additional rules on oneself (trail magic, water caches, no mail drops) or whatever they'd like really. As long as it isn't insanely unreasonable you could then go and beat an existing time and claim a new record with said new rules in place. The current FKT sets the bar.

What you can't do is lower the bar. Doing so makes it a different hike.
Record attempts are not thru-hikes. There is no HYOH. You must hike someone else's hike, ideally slightly faster.

Water- probably not going to happen.

There was some talk by Matt and others in support of eliminating mail drops from the AT and allowing only shop as you go resupply.

There is some debate on trail magic. My personal opinion is that to avoid any ambiguity or questions about your hike- simply refuse it. If you weren't planning on it- who cares. More importantly- why tarnish your hike for a piece of food.

If anything were to be realistically added to the list above- refusing any and all food, which isn't magic anyway, is the most likely.

At some point the water may come up- but you'd need somebody willing to prove it.
Ultimately that's all it comes down to. Will someone try it, and can that someone do it?

So to answer your question- as it sits- Joey can accept trail magic by the traditional definition. I suppose that even means he could Yogi food if he liked. All he can't do is arrange to have someone supply him with food, nor can someone hop in their car in hopes of helping him out.

Yar- gets to be a fine line with lots of grey- but still a line.
Even in the relatively short time since Scott set his records and rules- "trail magic" has increased exponentially. A few random encounters in the course of a 2000+ mile journey is a blip and was not worth a thought. These days, perhaps worth consideration.

But until the next hiker steps up, raises the bar, and rewrites both record and guidelines... it is what it is.

[Just Bill]

From Joey's PCT attempt post at FKT-


-Walk into and out of resupply towns to purchase or pick up prepacked and mailed supplies.

-Hike as a backpacker, carrying all food and equipment between resupply towns.

-Follow the official PCT route, official re-routes included.

-Do not have anyone follow, or provide support in a prearranged manner.

-Do not get into a vehicle for any reason during the attempt.

-Honestly and thoroughly document the attempt.

-Practice Leave-No-Trace ethics.

As far as I know/understand; those are the rules I have to follow and beat Anish's time(60days, 17hours, 12minutes)

[Wyoming]

Well what we really have here are not rules. We have some sort of guidelines is all and one can be absolutely certain that if we had full knowledge of all of the FKT hikes what the various hikers have done would be all over the place.

As you mentioned the Trail Magic stuff is way over the top now. If you compare what was available out there on the AT 10-15 years ago to now you get very different things. A FKT hiker using trail magic in 2000 probably would not have gotten must boost. Today the boost would be huge. To me that means that you can't use it anymore.

For the PCT the difference is even greater than in the past in trail magic terms.

But my real point here is that trial magic is support as it does not matter if you don't know the person giving you food.

I also don't buy the self caching of supplies just for the reason I stated above. A dedicated person could cache food and water all up and down the trail and have a setup far better than having supporters meet one at road crossings. If the stated guidelines are the word on this it is only a matter of time that someone does it as one can then eliminate all town stops and the time and mileage associated with them. This would amount to a huge advantage. It would have to amount to at least days worth of time.

Standards for keeping records always evolve over time as the competition gets more intense and folks concentrate more on what makes the most rational rules. I expect that these guidelines will change as they are subject to so much manipulation and outside help as structured.

We all are allowed to set our own standards and if I were young enough and fit enough to try and do such a hike I would follow along the lines of what I think makes sense. And I while I will be impressed at all of the times of these hikes I won't consider any of them real records until they are all playing the game the same way. In some ways it is like all the back and forth about any other sport and how the rules are applied and how the players manipulate them.

BTW I expect if we had full knowledge of what all of the FKT'ers had done you will find at least one who has done it along the lines of my thinking. It is a natural place to land.

[Lone Wolf]

needs to pay his own way

http://www.gofundme.com/su7y58z

[Wyoming]

needs to pay his own way

http://www.gofundme.com/su7y58z

Oh my! I won't say what I think of that.

[MuddyWaters]

I got no problem helping a qualified person fund a record attempt. Its certainly no vacation. Not uncommon for well known people to get free stuff from sponsors, like shoes especially, maybe some nut butters, etc.

[4eyedbuzzard]

needs to pay his own way

http://www.gofundme.com/su7y58z

Oh my! I won't say what I think of that.

Okay I will. He's states that he's going to donate what he doesn't spend to relief efforts in Nepal. How charming. So given that the trickle down and crumbs would go to a worthy cause I was truly torn as to what to do with a few finite charitable dollars. Having to choose between donating to someone who is not working and seeking my financial support to go off hiking - and people whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed by a natural disaster wasn't easy. But in the end, I made a tough choice and donated DIRECTLY http://www.nytimes.com/live/earthqua...fort-in-nepal/ .

[Just Bill]

Well what we really have here are not rules. We have some sort of guidelines

Correct

I also don't buy the self caching of supplies

Neither does the anyone doing the PCT or the AT. Caches are not allowed.

[Just Bill]

i got no problem helping a qualified person fund a record attempt. Its certainly no vacation. Not uncommon for well known people to get free stuff from sponsors, like shoes especially, maybe some nut butters, etc.

yar.......

[rocketsocks]

Yup, the supported/unsupported thing is kinda ironic.