Flyin Brian.Originally Posted by colorado_rob
Paul "Mags" Magnanti
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The true harvest of my life is intangible...a little stardust caught,a portion of the rainbow I have clutched -Thoreau
Going back to the OP.
I looked up the link and she was at mile 1889 (Rattle River Shelter, NH) on the 24th of Apr. So about an 18 mpd pace and a finish of the AT about 10 May (assuming the same pace).
I would assume (if she is still intending to keep going) that she would hit the PCT then about 12 May and head north. This is adequate timing for hitting the high Sierra as early as reasonably possible. Once again assuming she will ramp the mpd up into some pretty high numbers. Which is required if this attempt is to succeed. Which I hope it does.
For reference Flying Brian started Jan 1 and made it to Mount Greylock by 25 March and then went to NM to start the CDT. He went from Cumbres Pass to the Mexican border between March 30 and Apr 20. He started the PCT on Apr 29.
So, roughly speaking, Brian had a total of about 770 miles of the CDT and 1575 miles of the AT in by Apr 24th. Or about 450 miles more than Speedstick by the same date. But the different start dates means Brian had 10 more days of hiking in by Apr 24th also.
Brian started the PCT on Apr 28 and finished on July 21. 84 days.
and started the CDT on July 24th and finished the CDT on Sept 27th. 88 days.
and finished the AT on Oct 27th.
meanwhile "Legend" is rapidly wrapping up the AT. Crossed into the 100 mile wilderness yesterday or today. He is cruising and will finish in about 84 days.
http://freeoutside.com/day-79-moose-...and-the-river/
Cool blog and a nice moose picture, thanks for the link.
On on another note I give this young girl props for running a 1/2 marathon by mistake. Can't help but think what barriers she just set herself up for to overcome the rest of here life...I wonder what if at all any of these FKT hikers had a similar experience when young that told 'em "I think I can, I think I can" good stuff when we push ourselves.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/12-year-...on-by-mistake/
legend certainly had a bit of challenging LD hiking. He was a fellow 2011 PCT hiker so he several (hundred) miles of snow. I suspect that experienced has served him well so far on this trek.
cool story on the girl.
Nice! I did not know about him. Let's look at his stats so far too.
Assuming he finishes as you project then he has averaged approximately 25.5 mpd. Not bad for winter conditions (this being a deliberate understatement I think).
Based off his blog though he is over about 2 1/2 weeks behind his desired schedule as he planned on starting the PCT mid-April.
But assuming he starts the PCT circa May 3 he is fine for finishing it. The faster he goes the better of course. But if he goes the speed he planned on he would finish circa 7 Aug due to being a couple weeks behind schedule - his blog gets the result that he planned on 30mpd on the PCT). If he can recover the time on the PCT (seems quite possible looking at his times so far) and get back on schedule (i.e. 35 mpd average) then he originally planned on starting the CDT late July. On the positive side, if he had actually kept his schedule he would really have hit bad snow and maybe lost the time anyway.
At his planned pace for the CDT (assuming he does get started late July) he will be exiting the San Juan's circa 9 Oct. Somewhat pushing it. If he is running 2 weeks late then he is really pushing it. (these numbers are figured off the 'official' CDT trail mileage - which no one to date has followed while doing a calendar year TC hike to my knowledge). He needs to speed up on this section a bit too if he can.
An interesting note here is route choice. Speedstick intends to do the CDT 2nd vice the PCT and Legend is the other way around. It is likely that the PCT choice is the better one. While BOTH trails have lots of snow this year, and still will, when these two hit the mountains, it is more likely that the PCT will yield higher daily mileage than the CDT will. Currently the PCT trail itself (from Kennedy Meadows to Tuoloumne) is above average to average snow pack and the weather is nasty and snowing as we speak. This does not make for the recently common early entry into the Sierras we have seen the last few years. Getting in early might be a bit tough, but the amount of snow travel is much less than what is likely on the CDT.
However when it comes to snow this year the CDT is even worse. As of today the snowpack at the Wolf Creek ski resort in the middle of the San Juan's is roughly 12 feet and they are at 439 inches for the year. This is above normal and it is snowing there now and, being only 30 Apr, it is going to get a lot more snow this year still. Getting into the San Juan's early will require extensive snow travel and thus slow going.
It would be fun to read about their travels (travails?) during the season but I leave for the PCT myself in a few days so I will have to read about most of it after I crawl back home. Best of luck to both of them and I might even run across one of them.
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