Brianle - Pacific Crest Trail Journal - 2008

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Brian "Gadget" Lewis
City: Bellevue
State: WA
Country: USA
Begins: Apr 27, 2008
Direction: Northbound

Daily Summary
Date: Sat, Oct 18th, 2008
Start: Home
End: Home
Daily Distance: 0
Trip Distance: 2,631.4

Journal Stats
Entry Visits: 1,539
Journal Visits: 152,943
Guestbook Views: 84,272
Guestbook Entrys: 155

First off, many many thanks to Wes who on his own initiative and due to his own generosity collected my key trail data into a spreadsheet --- wonderful.

I started on April 27th from the southern PCT terminus near the Mexican Border and finished at the northern Terminus at the Canadian border on Sept 16th, then after 7 days off I did the parts I had skipped due to fires in California, with final finish on Oct 4th.

So 161 total days, from April 27 to Oct 4th

that's 5 months and 8 days (five literal months plus 4 days each in April and October)
161 days is exactly 23 weeks, or 44% of a full year

If you ignore the two big chunks of time I took off --- a week off due to foot problems and then time after reaching Canada before I started again in NorCal --- then:

That's 15 less days, and I'd take one more day out as having been spent hitching around fires in July, for a total of 16 days.
161 - 16 = 145 days, or 20 weeks and 4 days, or 40% of a year

Since I walked the whole trail, total mileage walked ended right about at 2664. There are some pluses there but they balance out pretty well.

Using 145 days and 2664 miles, that averages to about 18.4 miles per day.

Apart from the two big chunks of time off, I took a total of 13 Zero days, at each of:

Warner Springs, Agua Dulce, Mojave, Kennedy Meadows, Independence (2), Mammoth Lakes (2), Seiad Valley, Ashland, Snoqualmie Pass, and Stehekin (2) FWIW, if all zero's were removed, but Nero's kept in, I had 132 days where I did at least some hiking each day, and my per-day mileage for those 132 days was 20.2 miles per day

That included 12 Nero days of 10 miles or less and another 12 Nero days of 10 to 15 miles.

If only counting days where I did at least 10 miles in the day, my per-day average was 21.4 miles per day over 121 days
If only counting days where I did at least 15 miles in the day, my per-day average was 22.4 miles per day over 109 days

I only did 30 or more miles in a day four times (my longest day was 32.4 miles):

the first time on May 13th doing a road walk after Big Bear City.
the second time on July 16th in the stretch between Castella and Etna summit road
the third time getting almost to Ashland on July 21st
The fourth time on July 31st somewhere north of Crater Lake

Sierras: If the four zero days are removed (2 each in Independence and Mammoth Lakes) then I took 19 days of actual hiking to go from Kennedy Meadows to Sonora Pass

Calculating that way, my average Sierras mileage was 16.6 miles per day
Offsetting the dropped zero days somewhat was that the above mileage doesn't include the extra miles to and from Independence via Kearsarge Pass, nor the time (essentially a full day off) to climb Mt. Whitney
More realistic might be 315.5 miles over 18 days, or 17.5 miles per day when actually hiking
The literal average, with zeros and Whitney and all, however, was 13.7 miles per day over 23 days (four zero days and one mountain climbing day off trail)

There are perhaps a host of other potential statistics, but the above are what seemed obvious to me from the data I have available. If someone reading this has others to suggest, please post in my guestbook!

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