To be Supported or not to be Supported?

So as I was driving 600km (300 there and back again) to buy a pie, a friend of mine that is used to hiking the lovely Bruce asked me if the hike will be supported, and I honestly could not make up my mind. To those uninitiated (like me) a supported hike is where someone basically "follows" us by car carrying the heavy stuff and meets us at designated points at designated times. This allows us to walk less encumbered, meaning for a greater distance and at a higher level of comfort. I'm not used to this because the long hikes I had as a kid involved canoes, and a canoe makes the process much easier as they can easily carry your stuff with little extra expended effort. I had no answer for my friend, so I'll brood about it here.

The pros and cons of a supported hike.

Pros:

• You can go farther, faster, easier.
• You only need to bring what you need for a short period, saving things from possibly getting wet, dirty, etc.
• It forces you to find facilities and not just camp off the trail. Facilities have nice things like showers, and beer.

Cons:

• There is a symbolism issue. If you are undertaking something considerable and difficult in order to raise money for charity then being supported by an escort seems like a bit of a cop out. One would need to sufficiently increase the difficulty to offset the loss of the symbol of sacrifice.
• We need yet another person to do this, which represents two problems. First, it's not cheap. We'll have to subsidize our volunteer driver for the considerable fuel cost. Second, we'll need someone who is going to be around the area for that time, or doesn't mind commuting from Toronto every couple of days to meet us with supplies.
• A much higher carbon footprint to the event.
• It slightly increases the logistic complexity of the event.

So this is something to pine over but I don't have to make a decision quite yet. I'll convene with the other hikers and will update the blog!