Pacific Crest Trail Map Download
Alke Wigren
The route is mostly through National Forest and protected wilderness. It also passes through seven national parks: Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Yosemite, Lassen Volcanic, Crater Lake, Mt. Rainier, and North Cascades. The trail avoids civilization and covers scenic and pristine mountainous terrain with few roads. It passes through the Laguna, Santa Rosa, San Jacinto, San Bernardino, San Gabriel, Liebre, Tehachapi, Sierra Nevada, and Klamath ranges in California, and the Cascade Range in California, Oregon, and Washington.
The Pacific Crest Trail System Conference was formed by Clarke to both plan the trail and to lobby the federal government to protect the trail. The conference was founded by Clarke, the Boy Scouts, the YMCA, and Ansel Adams (amongst others). From 1935 through 1938, YMCA groups explored the 2,000 miles of potential trail and planned a route, which has been closely followed by the modern PCT route.[12]
Thru-hiking is a term used in referring to hikers who complete long-distance trails from end to end in a single trip. Thru-hiking is a long commitment, usually taking between four and six months, that requires thorough preparation and dedication. The Pacific Crest Trail Association estimates that it takes most hikers between six and eight months to plan, train, and get ready for their trips.[19] It is estimated the average completion rate is around 14%.[20]
Hikers also have to determine their resupply points. Resupply points are towns or post offices where hikers replenish food and other supplies such as cooking fuel. Hikers can ship packages to themselves at the U.S. Post Offices along the trail, resupply at general and grocery stores along the trail, or any combination of the two.[23] The final major logistical step is to create an approximate schedule for completion. Thru hikers have to make sure they complete enough miles every day to reach the opposite end of the trail before weather conditions make sections impassable. For northbound thru-hikers, deep snow pack in the Sierra Nevada can prevent an early start. The timing is a balance between not getting to the Sierra too soon nor the Northern Cascades too late. Most hikers cover about 20 miles (32 km) per day.[19]
In order to reduce their hiking time and thereby increase their chances of completing the trail, many hikers try to substantially reduce their pack weight. Since the creation of the Pacific Crest Trail there has been a large movement by hikers to get away from large heavy packs with a lot of gear. There are three general classifications for hikers: Traditional, Lightweight, and Ultralight.[24][25]
On October 16, 1970, Eric Ryback, an 18-year-old student, completed the first PCT thru-hike. His personal congratulations came by telegram from Edward P. Cliff, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service.[28] Ryback is credited, recognized, and has been honored by the Pacific Crest Trail Association as the official first thru-hiker of the entire trail.[29] Ryback completed the Appalachian Trail in 1969 (as a 16-year-old); the Pacific Crest Trail in 1970; and a route approximating today's Continental Divide Trail in 1972.[30] Ryback's 1971 book The High Adventure of Eric Ryback: Canada to Mexico on Foot focused public attention on the PCT. Ryback carried an 80-pound pack on his 1970 thru-hike. He had only five resupply packages on the entire trip and was loaded with 40 pounds of food at the start of each leg. He often ran out of food and foraged or went hungry.[29] Ryback also helped the Forest Service lay out future plans for the PCT.[31]
However, Ryback's claim is disputed. When the guidebook publisher Wilderness Press stated that Ryback had used motor transport in places along the PCT, Ryback sued for $3 million but withdrew the suit after Wilderness Press revealed statements from the people who claim to have picked up the young hiker along highways parallel to the 2,600-mile trail. Ryback is in Smithsonian's top 9 list of people Cheating Their Way to Fame though it notes that "the claims that Ryback 'cheated' are still doubted by some."[32]
Richard Watson, who completed the trail on September 1, 1972,[26] was often credited as the first PCT thru-hiker because Papendick was generally unknown and Ryback may have accepted rides. The first woman to complete the PCT was Mary Carstens, who finished the journey later in 1972, accompanied by Jeff Smukler.[26]
The youngest person to hike the trail is Christian Thomas Geiger, who at the age of 6 completed the trail with his parents Andrea Rego and Dion Pagonis.[36] Christian, also known by his trail name Buddy Backpacker, was also the youngest person to hike the Appalachian Trail until 2020.[37][38]
Other notable young hikers include Sierra Burror and Reed Gjonnes. Burror, who completed a continuous thru-hike of the trail in 2012 at the age of 9, is the youngest girl to thru-hike the trail. She completed her hike with her mother, Heather Burror.[39][40][41] Gjonnes, who thru-hiked the trail in 2011 at age 11, went on to complete the Triple Crown of Hiking, becoming the youngest person ever to do so.[42]
Crossing through California, Oregon, and Washington, the PCT passes through twenty-five national forests and seven national parks. Just a few hundred people successfully complete a thru-hike (the entire length) of the trail every year (most south-north and beginning in April/May). Why would a person undertake such an endeavor?
Over the course of the PCT Survey, the number of countries represented on the trail has grown dramatically. In 2013, there were just 11 countries represented on the trail. In 2019, there were nearly three times as many.
Does this mean that #EXTREMEWALKING is becoming a more popular activity? Or does it simply mean that everyone who has hiked the Appalachian Trail in the past is realizing that they chose the wrong trail to hike first?
The second graph is a distribution of all mileages reached by hikers before getting off the trail. There are spikes between 700 and 800 (the Sierra), 1000 and 1100 (Northern California), and 2000 to 2100 (Northern Oregon).
Flip-flopping (or simply flipping) is the act of jumping ahead to somewhere on the PCT with the intention of then hiking south to the spot where you initially left the trail. Alternatively, hikers can just continue hiking the direction they were initially and then return to where they left the trail and make up the miles once the obstacle responsible for the flip is no longer an issue.
On average, thru-hikers who completed the trail, sent themselves 10.1 resupply boxes. This works out. This number increased from 2013 until 2015 when it peaked at 14. Since then, the number of resupply boxes hikers have been sending themselves has been slowly decreasing. Possibly due to trail towns becoming more aware of hikers and better prepared to take their resupply dollars?
What many first-time thru-hikers fail to realize (or accept) is that you can send yourself resupply boxes from on the trail. That said, there are a number of reasons why you would want to prepare yourself resupply boxes ahead of time (to be sent out by yourself before you leave or by someone else who cares dearly about your success on the PCT).
The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) travels from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington and is open to hikers and stock groups. About 18 miles of the trail passes through the South Unit of North Cascades National Park. PCT travelers fall into one of three categories:
North Cascades National Park Service Complex is one of the premier "wilderness parks" in the lower-48 states, created in 1968 in the aftermath of the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The permit system is designed to disperse visitors along the trail corridors in order to meet a management goal of protecting wilderness character in the 99% of the National Park that is designated Wilderness. Camping is only allowed at designated sites (no dispersed camping), and permits are limited to the number of sites and site capacity of each backcountry camp.
Although the PCT corridor is one of the busiest in the park, the permit system helps distribute people throughout the corridor, to designated sites that are set off the main trail and away from each other, so that the experience for all hikers is one of solitude, with minimal impact to the corridor's Wilderness resources. When PCT hikers camp without a park permit, they impact other visitors who do have permits by over-filling camps and forcing groups to share camps when they were expecting a higher degree of solitude. This impacts the visitor experience negatively and has the potential to create user group conflicts and/or camping impacts and resource damage along the trail or camps.
Note: Many hikers pass through the 18 miles of the PCT within the Park without spending the night at any camp.
The Pacific Crest Trail Association website is the central source for PCT information, including planning a PCT journey, trail conditions along the length of the trail, maps and guides, crossing the Canadian border, and volunteering to help maintain and manage the PCT.
Your last days on this section are spent in some of the most stunning scenery of the entire trail -- the Goat Rocks Wilderness. Dramatically rugged, the Goat Rocks includes some of the more challenging terrain on the PCT, including a knife-edge traverse, and and a traverse of the Packwood Glacier.
With spring finally here, the Pacific Crest Trail season has begun. Down on the border in Southern California, hikers are beginning to make their way north on the PCT. For 700 miles, they will be winding through deserts, sky islands and boulders fields, working their way toward Kennedy Meadows, the gateway to the glorious Sierra Nevada. However, this year, the Sierra poses unusual circumstances for thruhikers. The Long Winter has piled feet upon feet of snow in the High Sierra to the point of breaking records throughout the range. This makes sections of the trail treacherous not just because the path is buried in snow but also because passes are difficult to traverse and creek and river crossings are nearly impossible. Such are the conditions in spades this year on the PCT.
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