Winter thru-hike suggestions

Justin, Rex Sanders and other BPLers have hiked long routes in the California coastal range which could be winter hikes. Usually they post a link here to their own web site. They might not be long enough for your thru hike.

Cheers

The Florida Trail is perfect for that time frame.

I’ve hiked a few ~100-mile loops and other adventures in coastal California – not really “thru-hikes” by most common definitions.

Other longer trips worth considering, depending on your tolerance for road walking or thrashing through chaparral on unmaintained trails, include:

California Coastal Trail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Coastal_Trail

Oregon Coast Trail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Coast_Trail
Amy & Jim have a good writeup: http://doingmiles.com/2008-07-oregon-coast/

Amy & Jim’s “Doing Miles” web site is worth exploring for other trips in the San Francisco Bay area: http://doingmiles.com

The Condor Trail reportedly has been thru-hiked / bushwhacked only once: http://www.condortrail.com

Less challenging are a couple of the trips I’ve done –

100-mile loop in the Santa Cruz Mountains: https://tinyurl.com/100mileloop

100-mile loop in Marin County: https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/90733/

Hope this helps.

— Rex

The South West Coast Path in the UK would be doable in winter, though this wouldn’t be the normal season – it could be quite wet and windy, but you’re unlikely to see much snow. You’d certainly avoid the crowds – I’ve only met a couple of people who did it in winter.

At around 640 miles it generally takes 6 weeks or so. It’s pretty tough going with steep switchback ascents and descents – something like the AT in terms of effort.

Not a remote trail, but it does offer some wonderful cliff scenery and plenty of picturesque villages with excellent food. There should be a fair bit of accommodation available, even in winter, but you could wild camp most of it if you prefer.

You have to cross a number of estuaries, and some of the ferries don’t run in winter which would involve some detours and road walking, but it’s doable.

I’m on this trail many times a week summer and winter and always enjoy it. I’ve met hikers from around the world who also rated it highly – it’s one of the best of its type.

https://www.southwestcoastpath.org.uk

If you’d like more information, just PM me…

I second for the Florida Trail!  Great, unique experience.

Camino de Santiago has some winter route options. Camino Portugues and Camino Frances are pretty mild (although wetter) in winter. I’d much prefer them then to peak season in the summer.

He he he – HRP in winter time …
(A caution: almost all the Refuges in the Pyrenees are shut outside the summer season.)

Cheers
PS: not a serious suggestion!

Forget the canoe. Ski or snowshoe the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in February. Forget most of the portage trails and ski the frozen lakes.

BE someone! “Do it in the snow!”

Rex, the loops you’ve created in Marin and the Santa Cruz Mountains look fantastic, would it be possible for you to share the GPX files for those trips. Thank you!

Hi Ben,

Here’s the Marin GPX file. It has some big gaps due to user error and a dying battery:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rrTXHE0O8drkIhC1VWAbiPA2jXBWqOle/

That file could disappear when I need the space for other projects.

Don’t have GPX for the Santa Cruz Mountains loop, wasn’t carrying GPS. And the loop can’t be hiked due to closure of the Basin Easement Trail “until the end of the summer in 2019” (or maybe longer). Any re-route would involve a lot of road walking or backtracking.

HTH.

— Rex

I’ve fixed permissions on that GPX file, and you should be able to download it now. Not sure what happened, worked OK in August.

The Basin Easement trail is now closed “until the end of November, 2019.” Check the Santa Cruz Mountains Backcountry Trail Camps page for the latest information. Those mountains just got their first good rainstorm in more than 6 months, with more on the way. Yay!

— Rex

Condor Trail. Contact Bryan for the maps. There’s been a lot of work done to some of these trails. It’s better than it used to be. It’s hard to do the resupplies so contact Bryan from the website because you’ll need info for how to do resupplies and you’ll need the KML files. The links are not working on his website (if you’re web savvy you can figure them out, though.) https://condortrail.com