I had the chance to do the PCT out of Snow Creek last Saturday with bcox (who turned out to be a great guy, very smart, competent and adventurous; he made the trip a ton of fun.)
Here's the looooonnnnng (PCT) and short (C2C) of it.
They're very similar in the types of terrain covered, C2C just does it in much less distance.
Some advantages of Skyline:
SKyline is very clear trail, with very little vegetation sticking out into the trail.
Skyline is in a sense the better workout - it is short and sweet - if you do the trail just up to the tram, you have almost zero downhill, so you avoid the pounding of other trails.
Skyline has become very popular (so to many this will be a disadvantage) and as such has more potential support if you do get hurt. If you go on a Saturday, you have a good chance of someone coming along and helping you. On the PCT, we saw absolutely no one until we hit the Marion Mountain trail. The first 22 miles, not one soul.
Some cool sides to the PCT version:
1. It's not steep. It's a smooth, well built and mildly graded trail the whole time
2. It has some interesting highlights that are several miles back into the back country,
There's a beautiful valley about 8 miles in that is home to a herd of deer. I've been there twice, and both times seen them We saw 8 on Saturday.
An eerie old burned out stand of trees is about 12 miles in, then you crest a ridge at about 13 miles in, and find yourself in beautiful forest with 18 of your 31 miles still to go.
3. It turned out to be true that the trail is somewhat overgrown for some long stretches, mostly between miles 4 and 10. The trail is evident, but there are sticks from last year's dead weeds sticking out, and bcox and I had hundreds of little scratches on our shins, and a few on our arms as well. Incidentally, the weeds would have been no problem if we had been wearing long pants and long sleeve t-shirts. They didn't have thorns, they were just a little scratchy.
Only in two, very short places (maybe 15 feet) did we have trouble seeing the trail - there were two damp spots where seasonal streams run that had grown over quite a bit. These were a little spooky, as we were at that point still in complete darkness except for our little trail lamps. It was sure nice having bcox with me, as it was a little scary when we couldn't find the way, and an owl began to hoot in the distance, almost as if it were scripted from some B horror movie.
4. From there, just a few more miles and you cross a dirt road(where you'll see the Fuller Ridge trailhead), Castle Rocks with some great views about 2 miles later, and then begin a rolling trail that goes up and down until you link up with the Marion Mountain trail. At that point, you're 2.6 miles from the peak, and headed toward Little Round Valley. Up and over to the Peak, where you can look directly back down at Snow Creek - the view is especially rewarding because you can see your starting point far, far below.
5. Standard retreat back down to the tram, for a total of 31 miles.
TIME CONSIDERATIONS: It took us 10 hours and 15 minutes. A reasonable second trip might knock that down to 9 hours, maybe 8 at best.
On the other hand, it could easily take a bit longer if you don't care for trail running or simply want to go a little slower to savor the trip. I know some folks do Skyline (stopping at the tram) in 8-12 hours. That pace would probably equate to somewhere around 20-24 hours here. Maybe not, as the nice, even grade makes it much easier to keep a steady pace. Better safe than sorry, though.
Hope this helps if anyone else is considering doing it. I might do it again next spring, but I probably won't have a chance to hit it again til then. Maybe I'll see some of you on Skyline next weekend!
z