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Post by merendo07 on Feb 4, 2024 10:36:06 GMT -8
Try to avoid leaving a rental car at a trailhead. Most are safe enough, but some areas have issues with people breaking into the vehicle or some have issues with animals that damage the vehicles. No reason to pay a big chunk of money for a car that sits at the trailhead for a week.  Thanks. Yes I'll try to avoid that, if I can. I'm finding that getting to and from the trailheads is a bit tricky in places though. |
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rebeccad
Trail Wise!
Writing like a maniac
Posts: 12,685 
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Post by rebeccad on Feb 4, 2024 18:36:29 GMT -8
Try to avoid leaving a rental car at a trailhead. Most are safe enough, but some areas have issues with people breaking into the vehicle or some have issues with animals that damage the vehicles. No reason to pay a big chunk of money for a car that sits at the trailhead for a week. Thanks. Yes I'll try to avoid that, if I can. I'm finding that getting to and from the trailheads is a bit tricky in places though. That’s the problem, though in the Sierra look into the YARTS buses (Yosemite Area Rapid Transit system, or some such, but IIRC serves the east side and SEKI |
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Post by merendo07 on Feb 5, 2024 3:54:35 GMT -8
So, if indeed we are in for a scorching summer this year, I feel I should hedge my bets regarding the trail I walk. My idea is to book my flights now (Zurich->SF in early September, NY->Zurich 3 weeks later) and keep an eye on the wildfire situation.
The PCT section in Washington sounds and looks awesome, but my worry is that wildfires might make it impossible to walk that trail when I'm there. Maybe by then, the worst of the wildfires will already be over?
Anyway, with the flights booked, I think I still have enough flexibility to do a trail either in the Sierras, in Washington or perhaps part of the Appalachian Trail (where fildfires will hopefully not be an issue). Any glaring blunders in that plan?
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Post by georgeofthej on Feb 5, 2024 15:29:33 GMT -8
Your plan seems good to me. I live in California and most of my backpacking trips have been in the Sierra. We often get smoke in the summer and fall, so it is possible that smoke could disrupt any backpacking plans in September.
It sounds like you are trying to put some flexibility into your planning, which is good. I have had backpacking plans foiled by smoke a few times. One time I was going to backpack near Lake Tahoe, but smoke from a fire near Yosemite made it impossible. So, I drove to Yosemite! Although I was closer to the fire, the wind direction carried the smoke away from Yosemite, and at least I got to backpack there for 2 nights. The problem was, I could not get a permit for any of the most popular trails; all the good permits had already been reserved. I ended up backpacking along a less scenic trail, but I still enjoyed it.
We can't predict when wildfire smoke will be a problem here in California. There wasn't very much smoke at all last year---2023---but during some other years there have been a lot of big fires and constant smoke for 2 months or more. Sometimes there are several big fires up and down the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, so no matter which direction the wind is blowing, it will bring smoke to you from one of the fires. I'm talking about California and don't know as much about Washington.
I'm going to guess that there is as much as a 10% chance of smoke forcing backpackers to alter their plans during September in California, so it's good to have a back-up plan. I wonder if other forum members here agree with my 10% probability guess.
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Post by merendo07 on Feb 7, 2024 23:54:49 GMT -8
Outstanding, thanks.
Yes, I think I need some flexibility, because, things can happen...
I'd like to go to South Dakota anyways, and Wyoming if I'm there, to see Yellowstone. I could then also do part of the CDT (although that would almost certainly involve leaving my rental car at one trailhead). I hear the Wyoming portion if the CDT offers very diverse landscape, so could be a good option. Any thoughts on that? Could work, right?
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Post by georgeofthej on Feb 9, 2024 13:35:58 GMT -8
Merendo, here is an online resource for wildfire smoke that I use a lot. Maybe you already know about it or others like it. Purple Air: map.purpleair.com/1/mAQI/a10/p604800/cC0#5.77/37.945/-119.898The map is color coded for severity of air pollution. Green is clean air. Yellow isn't too bad. Orange is too smoky for me to hike very far, since I'm older. Red is probably too smoky for most people to hike, and even unpleasant to sit around in camp; it would smell like smoke and otherwise beautiful views would be hazy. Beyond red, worse air quality is marked by various other shades of brown. When there is a wildfire, it really shows up on the map with red and browns, near the fire and downwind. If enough fires burn for a long time, whole regions will be red on the map. The map measures various pollutants. Wildfires generate a pollutant called "particulates." Sometimes the map will show yellow or orange readings here or there, and these might not be from a fire, but from other types of air pollution. When there are red and brown readings, though, these are usually wildfire smoke. Here is a link to images of Purple Air maps during times of heavy smoke: www.google.com/search?sca_esv=90675d82984edeb9&sxsrf=ACQVn08eCEZ5ibOOgi_duvUAQAFQ2aAiTA:1707513668660&q=purple+air+map&tbm=isch&source=lnms&prmd=ihmsvnbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwienq2NmJ-EAxVCLkQIHcSvDwMQ0pQJegQIEhAB&biw=1872&bih=958&dpr=1You can see readings of 400 and higher, which is terrible air quality. You can see in a couple of the images that the entire western United States was blanketed in smoke. In another of the images, you can see smoke in the Eastern United States which came down from fires in Canada. I use the Purple Air map before a backpacking trip to see if the area I plan to hike in is smoky. Even if the area is not smoky, I look to see if there are any fires nearby that might bring heavy smoke if the wind direction changed, along with checking the weather forecast for wind direction. Since my trips are usually only 2 or 3 nights, this usually works for me. But not always: I've been in the middle of a trip when a new fire started and I got smoke. I now carry a mask if I think I might get smoke in the middle of a backpacking trip, a KN95. This filters out particulates as long as you achieve a tight seal to your face. A KN95 is lighter and smaller than an N95, so it's easy to carry in a backpack. |
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