Craigs PCT Planner

[Chance09]

Has anyone used this on their PCT thru? I'm certainly not assuming it will be accurate to the date, but I would like to use it to help my friends and family back home cordinate their maildrops to me. It will basically just be a rough outline of when i'll be where. I was just curious if anyone else has plugged their stats into it before a hike and how accurate you found it to be?

[burger]

I used it, but it wasn't all that accurate for me. Really, it's only as accurate as the mileages that you put in the program are. Also, it's hard to predict how many zeroes you're going to take.

If you have someone mailing packages to you, your best bet is to get in touch with that person about 2 or 3 town stops before you get there and let them know when you'll be arriving. It's pretty easy to plan your schedule 2-3 town stops ahead. Beyond that, it gets harder.

[sbhikes]

I used it to estimate my schedule. The trouble is, I didn't think I could walk more than 15 miles a day. Because I could walk more than that, my schedule went downhill fast. But I thought it was useful for me to get a better overview of where everything was and to make my initial plans. Good think I'm flexible when things don't work out as planned!

[Spirit Walker]

As Diane said, it will give you a basic outline, but probably won't be close to reality after the first month or so. Still, it's a lot of fun to play with. The Yahoo group in 2009 had a similar spreadsheet program that I also played with and it gave me totally different dates, though the input was similar. Never did figure that out.

[leaftye]

I think it's a good planner, but unfortunately I don't most of us know enough about how we'll hike to be able to put in good information. Us programmers commonly say, "garbage in, garbage out" and that fully applies here.

[A-Train]

I'd look at journals on TJ and postholer. I found there to be much less disparity in pace than on the AT. People (generally) seemed to be going at roughly the same pace and you should be able to estimate pretty acurately how many days from one town to the next. How many zeros you take will alter schedule. For instance my buddy and I were taking a zero in every town in Socal because we were having fun and trying not to get into the Sierra too quick.

For instance it seems to take most 5-6 days to go Campo to WS, another 4 to Idyllwild, another 5-6 for BBC, 5 to Wrightwood, 4-5 to Agua Dulce, etc. etc. After the Sierras, pace seems to change a bit. I think this is due to water availablilty. Causes bunching up