Stop doing car shuttles & thru hikes, you dummies!

[c9h13no3]

It's April, so let's stir things up a bit. Car shuttles are dumb. If you have 10 days to go hiking, why would you spend 9 days hiking and 1 day driving cars around when you could instead spend 10 days hiking? Nevermind that driving two cars around to the same places costs you money and pollutes the environment, who has the time to just set a day of hiking on fire to instead sit in a car doing what you do on your way home from work? Sure, all these bucket listy hikes are thru hikes. But if you're reading this site, it's because you're better than the sheeple who mindlessly walk a trail because someone gave it a name and other people do it.

stupid.jpg (78.67 KiB) Viewed 322 times

Oh and thru hikes. Inevitably they require crazy long car shuttles, resupplies, and a bunch of silly logistics that I have no idea how anyone finds fun. There's a reason why more recent named routes (Circle of Solitude in SEKI, Skurka's various routes) are loops. Thru hikes also focus on hiking trails, rather than hiking to destinations. Don't hike the High Sierra Trail, hike to Hamilton Lakes Basin, 9 Lakes Basin, and other things you want to see along the way. When you start thinking about hiking to places rather than trails, you'll discover there are often better ways to cram a bunch of cool places together than 1 named trail.

Yes, I realize no one wants to do an out & back. But there are so many better ways of seeing different terrain on your hike back than spending even more hours in the car.

So in the interest of being a fountain and not a drain, here's some suggestions for how to avoid seeing the same terrain twice on a hike.

The Gravity Shuttle - All that knee pounding on the down can be easily turned into coasting with the right road and a set of wheels. Theoretically, you could do this with a set of Heelys, but I've only done it with a bike. For example, drive your car up to the top of say, Sonora Pass, drop it off, and use your bike to coast down to Kennedy Meadows in 20 minutes. Chain up your bike in the woods out of sight, and you've accomplished a loop. Hell, even walking the road for a few miles isn't so bad, because only one person in the crew has to do it, and you can stash all your gear in the woods while you retrieve the car.

This bike was $25 on Craigslist, but I still felt compelled to lock it up :|

Use cross country passes to make a loop - Like, duh, right? Everyone on this forum has been doing this for ages, but in case you're the one person who isn't, just because the trail doesn't go in a loop doesn't mean you can't make one.

Hike in the dark - I'm not kidding. I end up doing this a lot anyways on long day hikes, when I start early or finish late. Don't want to see that boring section of flat trail twice? Let the sun go down, and you'll be checking out weird scorpions & centipedes that come out at night. Worried that the long nights will be a problem in late September? Hike during that time. You know that *woah* moment when you come out of your tent at night to pee and look at the stars for the first time? Plan to be awake for that with warm clothes & a thermos of miso soup.

I couldn't bring myself to see the Lyell Fork one more flippin' time!

Con your parents/kids/friends into going on "vacation" - "Hey mom, wanna meet me for a weekend in Mammoth?" You can tell her that you'll need to be picked up at Saddlebag Lake later. Now all you have to do is put up with your parents & a front country weekend... nevermind this is a bad idea.

[maiathebee]

Generally agree that I'd rather be walking than riding in a car. I do make use of park shuttles and hitching though.

And out and backs are underrated in my opinion. The landscape looks so much different when you hike it one way vs another, and usually you're seeing different bits at different times of day. And maybe even on your hike one way you spotted an amazing camp spot but it was only 11am---hike back the same way and plan to camp there!

[mkbgdns]

I'm with malathebee.

[markskor]

Also somewhat agree about avoiding the big "name" trails today...very thankful that those Sierra paths were done years ago. Their trailheads still serve as useful freeway on-ramps, soon to exit...easy leads to more isolated off trail adventures.

As for the rest of your rant...
I was wondering where the official HYOH rule book was, and who was responsible for telling me how best to spend my backpacking time and dollars. Thanks!

[oleander]

I really like the bike idea.

[thegib]

Night hiking Half Dome is the way to go. The light colored granite is bright enough that you barely need to bother w headlamps.

[Wandering Daisy]

I "con" my husband, but he does not need any conning. He quit doing long distance backpacking a few years ago but helps me with shuttles. I do one route, he meets me at the endpoint and then we have a 3-4 day "trailer trip" with day hikes, fishing, lounging, drinking wine. Then we retrieve my car, drop it at the end of the next route, and he drives me to my next starting point. It does not even have to be two contiguous routes. It is a win-win for both of us. I get a nice break with real food and showers, we get to be together for a few days, he has his trailer trip, and my shuttle problem is solved. He has even drives out all the way to Wyoming to help me! There we also visit with old friends.

For cross-Sierra trips I often do the "lollipop", which is really a in-and-out with different routes each way. I did the High Sierra Trail from Whitney Portal to Hamilton Lake, and then came back via Cloud Canyon and the Kern Keweah.

Another kind of "shuttle" is the "key exchange". You need two groups or persons who really trust each other. If you live in the same town you can carry keys for both cars and drive each other's cars home to exchange there. When from different towns, you each start at opposite end-points of the trip, plan on a specific place to trade keys and a place and time to meet up after the trip to get your own car back. This works best if you each have a PLB that allows you to communicate with each other. Additionally carrying the other car's keys adds some certainty that you will not be stranded, if something unplanned happens.

There is an aesthetic of long routes that traverse the spine of an entire or part of a mountain range whether it be a "named route" of one you just figure out yourself. I have done two, and they were unique experiences, never replicated by a loop. In spite of the logistics, neither were "stupid", in fact they both were highlights of my backpacking.

[c9h13no3]

I was wondering where the official HYOH rule book was, and who was responsible for telling me how best to spend my backpacking time and dollars. Thanks!

HYOH, but the planning belongs to the INTERNET!!

Generally agree that I'd rather be walking than riding in a car. I do make use of park shuttles and hitching though.

And out and backs are underrated in my opinion. The landscape looks so much different when you hike it one way vs another, and usually you're seeing different bits at different times of day. And maybe even on your hike one way you spotted an amazing camp spot but it was only 11am---hike back the same way and plan to camp there!

Yeah, I like the idea of YARTS or public transit. But every darn time I look into it, the timetable is yucky. You end up having to start late, or finish before 5, or some other silly shenanigans. At least if your time table synced up well, it'd be an option. But the 24 hr bus/hitches from Lone Pine back to Crescent Meadow after the HST? That's tomfoolery at it's foolhardiest.

Out & backs are underrated too. Most Sierra trails are worth doing twice.

[Wandering Daisy]

I think your work situation matters. When I worked, yes, I did not want to spend an entire day driving which also made me do routes closer to home. I now able to do routes that have more complicated logistics, but now cost rather than time is the limiting factor. And shuttles are very expensive.

I agree with you, regardless of all the time I have, current public transportation is horrible. The thing about public transportation is that the more it used, the more frequent it is run; the less frequent it runs, the less it is used, and the more inconvenient it becomes. Sort of the chicken and egg thing. I hope COVID does not kill public transportation; it already was on its death bed.

I always wondered why Roper chose to start and end at opposite sides as well as ends of the Sierra. Since he never presented ANY information regarding the logistics of his route, I think he just thought everyone should figure this out on their own. As for Skurka, some of his routes in other locations are thru-routes, not loops. He does, however, put a bit more thought into the logistics.

[Bishop_Bob]

I'm confused why someone else should care how I plan my hiking logistics.