Interesting debate over glissading. I thought my ballet definition
>>270441 was hilarious though,,,
>>270680It takes money to hike the whole trail, but there is a wide spectrum of funding that people bring to it. I will give you the extremes I saw:
Squirrels: These people have very little money and live by working at the hostels and towns they come into. There is some free food supplied by "trail angels" along the way, but it isn't much, especially as you get farther north. At the start many people over pack food and are willing to dump food off to others. This changes as you get farther north too as people start to get a handle on what to pack and how long it will take them to get to the next town. There are individuals that somehow make it off this meager support system.
Fully supported: There are enough road crossings along the trail that you can hike 85% of it and cross a road once a day. Fully supported hikers have a hot restaurant meal waiting for them at the road crossings (and may actually spend the night in a hotel) This is an extremely expensive way to go. It is usually how the people that are trying to set records do it.
