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A Triple Crown Quiz

Karen Berger & Dan Smith

Most of us long-distance hikers have at least some idea of how the three, big long-distance trails are different. The AT is a social trail with the toughest footway and most moderate weather. The PCT offers fast walking on easy footway, you can do big mileage but there are some environmental challenges. And the CDT is the unpredictable great unknown, requiring bushwhacking and navigation skills.

You’ve heard those generalizations, right? Overall, those summaries are useful, and we think accurate. But how do they play out in day-to-day hiking life? To find out, try the following quiz. We’ve put in entries from our diaries of the Triple Crown Trails (slightly edited to take out give-away identifying info) Your job: Choosing from the list (below) of possible locations on the AT, PCT or CDT, telling us where we were!

1. We were prepared for snow, but not for ice. The trail was slick with it, and it was hard to make any forward motion at all. Dan fell, spraining an ankle. Now we’re walking on snowshoes, because they, at least, have crampons attached so we can get a grip on the slippery surface.
2. From the ridges, everywhere we look, we see smooth, rounded green-clad mountains poking through the undercast of low-lying clouds. The world is filled with these gentle mountains, lying in folded ridges from here to the horizon.
3. It has been 100 degrees for the last few days. I had hoped to acclimate to this, but no such luck. All the hikers seem demoralized. We are drinking gallons of Gatorade, as much water as we can. I walk with a wet bandana under my hat, but it only helps for awhile.
4. We’ve been camping alone every night and almost never see another hiker. We’ve been atop the ridgeline for days now -- the trail follows on the crest, up and down, and up and down. The temperature up on the ridge is low -- in the 20s -- and the wind chill is fierce. As we walk, we have an unobstructed view to either side of us. The sky is that clear blue, the color that says we can expect more cold, windy weather.
5. Today, the trail just flat out disappeared. One minute we were on it, next to a sign pointing clearly toward a dirt road. Ten minutes later, there was no sign of anything, and nothing on the ground matched the map. Fortunately, we were near water. We stopped by a sort of backcountry camp, and some workers gave us water and helped us figure it all out. But I still don’t know what happened.
6. We are getting somewhat bored, dare I say? It seems that all we are doing is going up and down and up and down in the typical green tunnel. Unfortunately, lately, there haven’t been many views on the trail to reward us for our work.
7. I have counted 30 people in the last four hours, and from where we are camped, I can see at least six tents. If another person comes into my tentsite to chat or wants to stop on the trail to ask how I’m doing, I think I’m going to scream.
8. I love being at the point where I have learned to climb and my body can handle the big gains and losses easily. I actually felt high climbing today -- Rocky Mountain high kind of high, like when you finally reach above the tree-line and there it is, the alpine world, spread out before you, stark, and rocky, and hard, and pure.
9. There is a sense of bigness to the land here, a sense of solidity and massiveness to these mountains. The wind is fierce. We had to put on all our layers. There was one lone hiker out here, walking toward us. We could see him from so far away that it seemed to take an hour before our paths finally crossed. Watching him from such a distance -- and watching us take so long to approach each other -- made the land seem ever bigger and more remote.
10. The tarn was created by retreating glaciers. Today, it was stunningly blue. There were no other hikers around, but we did have company, a bear that seemed to look at us as we hungry hikers look at an AYCE restaurant. It was a little disconcerting to see his/her thoughts so clearly.
11. This evening, we heard a thunk and a splash, and I saw a giant bull moose stride into the lake. I love watching moose walk. They are so ungainly and deliberate, and so disproportionate. There has been quite a bit of scat on the trails, and we’ve seen a couple of them in the last two or three days.
12. Good trail, well graded, not a lot of steep ups and downs. It feels like a whole new trail -- like we’re flying. The trail is in the open, and high, with wonderful, craggy views. Twenty mile days are easy here.
13. I had heard that this was the hard part, but I don’t think I had a picture of just how hard. There isn’t anything so much as a footway -- you just have to find your way, over rocks, around them. Sometimes, it gets diabolical. You can believe that they actually expect someone with a pack to crawl over those rocks -- up there, down that. And you wonder: How long can it take to walk a mile? What if I fall?
14. We are all nervous about what lies ahead. So far, we have had only glimpses of it. But now, we are heading out, with behemoth packs with way too many days worth of food in them. We are heading up, into the mountains that we have so far only seen the south-facing slopes. Those slopes had snow. How much? Can we get through? I guess we’ll know in the next couple of days.

Choices

(You’ll note: Just to keep things interesting, there are more choices than diary entries)

1. Carson National Forest, New Mexico CDT
2. Cumbres Pass, Colorado, CDT
3. Hump Mountain, Tennessee, AT
4. Great Smokey Mountains National Park, Tennesee-North Carolina, AT
5. Colorado Trail near Mount Yale, Colorado, CDT
6. Mount Rogers, Grayson Highlands, Virginia, AT
7. Springer Mountain, Georgia, AT
8. Angeles Crest in San Gabriel Mountains, California, PCT
9. Marble Mountain Wilderness, California, PCT
10. Kennedy Meadows, California, PCT
11. Shoshone Lake, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, CDT
12. Sunfish Pond, New Jersey, AT
13. Namakanta Lake, Maine, AT
14. Mount Madison, New Hampshire, AT
15. Wind River Range, Wyoming, CDT
16. Rae Lakes, High Sierra, California, PCT
17. Mount Jefferson, Oregon, PCT
18. Ice Lake, Front Range, Colorado, CDT
19. Harriman State Park, New York, AT
20. Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire, AT
21. Mahoosuc Notch, Maine, AT
22. Grapevine Mountain, California, PCT

Answers

Karen Berger and Dan Smith are authors of Where the Waters Divide: A 3,000-Mile Trek Along America’s Continental Divide, and Along the Pacific Crest Trail. They offer a discount to ALDHA-West members: $15 for the CDT book, $35 for the PCT book (includes shipping), signed if you like.

Karen Berger
Phone: (914)-739-1621
Email: KBerger466@AOL.com