central/southern California backpacking?
How are conditions this year?
A friend of mine read Wild last year and has been pretty gung-ho about getting into PCT-hiking condition, which I very much want to encourage since I have approximately 0.001 friends who are willing to spend their weekend walking all day and then sleeping on the ground. Our original Utah plans fell through due to job-change stuff, but now we're definitely set for 2-3 nights in early November.
Does anybody have any reports/recommendations? In an ordinary year I'd start with looking at Sequoia and Los Padres NF, but with the multi-year drought and terrible fires I'm not sure what areas are currently good or even just not an impassible wasteland. I know poor Kings Canyon and a lot of the San Bernardino Mts are out of commission, and I read that a lot of the trails around Santa Barbara are now completely waterless, so I was considering cobbling together a trail & off-trail one-way in Joshua Tree with cached water, but I'd love to hear any other ideas!