Last week I received an itinerary from Vic Widman along the lines of criteria I suggested to him in March.
Designed to fill up eleven full days, it has three main sections.
The longest section runs out west through the West Macdonnell mountains, King's Canyon, Palm Valley, and the Mereenie Loop. This takes six days according to his schedule.
The second sectionis a two-day run to the Chambers Pillar.
The final section is a two-day scheduled run through the Cattlewater Pass. Vic says that ideally this is a three-day run.
My immediate impression is that Vic gave us a very full plate. Following the topo maps of the route it looks like there are endless things to see and distractions to succumb to.
My immediate reaction is to cull the Chambers Pillar two day trip. My second reaction is build serious flexibility into our schedule where we might decide to abort even the Cattlewater leg.
Why? A combination of us dawdling far more than Vic Widman might, us staying around to explore an area more thoroughly (KAP rigs, photography, mountain bikes, etc), and lastly maybe needing a break from 'roughing it' sometime through the middle of the trip.
My instinct is that we should try to do more with a shorter trip than do less on a longer trip.
My approach now is that we should start drilling down on the route, finding sites and diversions we are particularly interested in seeing while there. My guess is there is plenty, and we'll shortly, empirically prove to ourselves that stick to just the western lobe of the three-lobe trip is the best thing to do.
What are your thoughts on the itinerary?
Posted by Nils Blutig at April 13, 2003 11:39 PM | TrackBack