Vol. 29, No. 1 / Spring 2018 Blood, Sweat and Ink on the PCT (pg. 2) Is This the End? (pg. 5) Adventure in Your Own Backyard (pg. 6) Experience Trips: You Want Them, We’ve Got Them! (pg. 12) Shawnté Salabert, guidebook author and WTC instructor, on the Pacific Crest Trail WTC OFFICERS Contents (see your Student Handbook for contact information) WTC Chair WTC Outings Co-Chairs Bob Myers Adrienne Benedict Tom McDonnell WTC Registrar FEATURES Jim Martins LONG BEACH/SOUTH BAY SAN GABRIEL VALLEY Smiles, Not Miles Area Chair Area Chair Writer and WTC-instructor Shawnté Salabert spent 2 Brian Decker Jeremy Netka more than two years writing the guidebook on Area Vice Chair Area Vice Chair section hiking the southern section of the Pacific Sharon Moore Jan Marie Perry Crest Trail—and she’s got some advice for you. Area Trips Area Trips Mike Adams Mat Kelliher Is This the End? Spoiler alert—no, it isn’t! Lubna Debbini and Victor 5 Area Registrar Area Registrar Joan Rosenburg Amy Smith Gomez point you down the road of post-WTC fun and adventure. ORANGE COUNTY WEST LOS ANGELES Area Chair Area Chair Adventure in Your Own Backyard Matt Hengst Pamela Sivula Ditch the long drive—in Southern California 6 Area Vice Chair Area Vice Chair there’s adventure right out the back door and Gary McCoppin Katerina Leong Will McWhinney has a few ideas. Area Trips Area Trips Matt Hengst Adrienne Benedict Alphabet Soup Dig into the Angeles Chapter’s sections and you 8 Area Registrar Area Registrar find plenty of outdoor and other possibilities— Wendy Miller Pamela Sivula and acronyms. NEWSLETTER STAFF Gimme, Gimme, Gimme! Editor Trip Reports WTC wasn’t enough? You want more training and 22 Regge Bulman Rudy Fleck opportunities? Here you go. Content Editors Wansun Song Megan Birdsill Valerie Thomas Kate Miller Photo Contributors Bob Myers Molly Arevalo SECTIONS Valerie Thomas Josué Barrio Contributing Writers Karen Buehler From the Editor Lubna Debbini Matthew Hengst 1 Victor Gomez Jennifer Jones Brendan Leonard Kate Miller Outings Will McWhinney Bob Myers 12 Bob Myers Jan Marie Perry Shawnté Salabert Susan Smetana Trip Reports Saveria Tilden 24 Jennifer Whalen 360 Degrees 29 THE WTC NEWSLETTER is published biannually for students and staff of the Wilderness Training Committee and is distributed at The Final Word class sites. It is also available at WildernessTravelCourse.org Brendan Leonard has some suggestions for 30 as a download in PDF format. All questions, copy and photo your summer vacation. submissions should be directed to Newsletter Editor at [email protected]. Got a story? If you’ve got a story to tell, we want to hear it. The WTC Newsletter team welcomes your tales and trip reports, and we’re always looking for writers, stories and pictures. [email protected] iii Spring 2018 WTC Newsletter 1 From the Editor EXPLORE, ENJOY AND PROTECT THE PLANET Congratulations—you survived! in solitude and natural beauty, in clean air and clear You have spent the last ten weeks learning skills that in water, in a chance to recognize and remember our today’s modern world are, let’s face it, really no longer place in the world, and the value in new, exciting and required. unlimited challenges that are waiting out in the wild places for anyone willing to go experience them. You’ve hiked the local hills. You’ve navigated—for real— not just by following the voice emanating from your A second little secret is that there’s a tribe of us car’s dashboard. You’ve climbed on, around and up protectors out there…and with you, it’s growing. The rocks that a few months ago would have seemed— tribe goes out and shares the wild places with friends well, probably unwise. and family so they can see and experience their value, too. We vote at the ballot box and at the cash register. You’ve learned that snow is not just a pretty backdrop We sign petitions and go to meetings and talk to our for holiday pictures, but something to hike across, dig in elected officials. We make choices, big and small, that and slide down. And finally, you’ve learned that you can push the needle toward our priorities instead of the head into the wilderness in freezing temperatures and other way. come out two days later none the worse for wear. And the little secret is…you might even have had fun I hope you’ll read through this issue of our newsletter out there! and find ways to continue to explore and enjoy. Read the articles and trip reports and get inspired. Look for Now you’re just two experience trips away from a yourself or your new friends in the pictures. Go to the graduation party in the desert. Good work. outings section and find a trip or Really, I mean it. CONGRATULATIONS! GOOD WORK! two or ten to take part in. Go meet BRAVO! even more new friends who share your passion for the wild places. But...you’re only two-thirds of the way there. And whether with WTC and the If you haven’t noticed, the Sierra’s Club motto is Sierra Club, or on your own, don’t “Explore, Enjoy and Protect the Planet.” John Muir and hesitate…go explore, go enjoy, others started the Sierra Club in 1892 with the simple and perhaps most importantly, idea of protecting the wild places that they found so GO PROTECT! Regge Bulman is special. Now you possess the skills for parts one and a WLA Group 4 two; but the final part is a stiff challenge. Welcome to the tribe. Instructor Unfortunately, the “protecting” part will never be complete, will always be an uphill climb and will have just as many setbacks as successes. On a local, national and global level the protectors among us will always struggle against those that see wild places as untapped sources of economic opportunity. Whether it’s what lies beneath the land and water or what grows on or in it, they see more value in extracting the resources from wild places—value that can be turned into dollars—than in leaving them be. We see the ebb and flow of the conservation movement around us now. Just recently we’ve seen public lands in our country expanded one year and contracted the next. Countries, companies and powerful forces will always push to reach a little farther into the wilderness to get just a little more of what they’re after. The protectors see value too, just a different kind. Hopefully your time with WTC has helped you glimpse the true value of wild, untouched places. Value measured in new friendships and shared experiences, Ari Gordon/JoinTheUproar.com ii Spring 2018 WTC Newsletter 1 Smiles, Not Miles Section Hiking along the Pacific Crest Trail Shawnté near the top of Forester Pass while researching her guidebook The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) stretches a staggering before winter storms begin rolling through the Cascades. 2,650 miles (give or take) between Campo, CA, This offers a pretty narrow window for most hikers to in the south and Manning Park, BC, in the north. begin the trail. When you’re section hiking, however, Attempting a thru-hike (hiking the entire length in you can customize a hiking itinerary to fit your own one continuous effort) of this iconic trail is a huge schedule. I built a lot of trips around holidays and during quieter times at my job, using vacation days for extra dream for a lot of folks, but the reality is that most padding. Sometimes I only had a weekend to crank out people experience the PCT in bits and pieces by an adventure. I was committed to squeezing as much as section hiking at their own pace. possible out of my trips, so I would often leave right after I spent two years doing just that while covering the trail’s work on Friday and head for a campground or BLM land first 942.5 miles for my guidebook Hiking the Pacific near a trailhead, allowing me to start first thing the next Crest Trail: Southern California. While I did enjoy almost morning and enjoy two full days in happy backpacker two solid months on trail one summer, most of my trips mode. lasted between two and four days—and as it turns out, Hike all year long, in any season. Thru-hikers traverse those shorter experiences were just as memorable as the the California desert sections just as the thermostat is big haul. Here are some of the reasons why you might beginning to rocket; they also have to move through enjoy section hiking, too. the Sierra when deep snow and swollen rivers pose a risk. If you’re section hiking, you can plot trips when the Choose your own adventure. When you thru-hike the PCT, you’re essentially on a race against time. You conditions feel right—and when they match your skill want to begin at Campo before it gets too hot in the level. Not comfortable hiking in trail-obscuring, posthole- desert, but not so early that the Sierra is still completely inducing snow? Wait until late summer or even early fall snowbound—and you want to arrive in Manning Park to enjoy the Sierra. Sensitive to heat? Enjoy the desert portions in the late fall, winter and early spring—the latter 2 Spring 2018 is especially fantastic when the section hikers, but others are spring bloom begins in March. incredibly friendly and will One of my favorite experiences happily regale you with tales was a multi-day backpack in the of their dirtbag adventures.