Pacific Crest Trail Information

There's a lot to learn about the Pacific Crest Trail if you are interested. The PCT Data Book totals the mileage of the trail at 2,663.5 miles. The trail runs from Mexico to Canada, winding through three states: California, Oregon, and Washington. The trail covers terrain fron the desert in Southern California, to the mountains of the High Sierra in Central California, to the Cascades in far Northern California, and continuing through Oregon and Washington (data book).

The PCT was authorized by Congress in 1968 and thousands of hikers enjoy the trail each year. You can read some fun facts on the official website as well. One fun fact is that fewer people have thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail than climbed Mt. Everest!

I am planning to thru-hike the trail, but tons of things can get in the way of this happening. Some trail-stoppers would be weather, physical pains, family emergencies, or running out of money.

At this point in time there is already about a 60 mile stretch of the trail that is closed because of fire damage from 2008. The stretch is the beginning of the Northern California section known as section N in the data book. They are not planning to open up this section until mid September. It takes time and money to travel back to that one spot and hike the section. When things like this happen, usually, the pcta re-routes the trail for hikers, but this has yet to happen. We'll just see if it happens before I get to that section.

NOTE: The Pacific Crest Trail was not officially completed until 1993 (cited). The Appalachain Trail was completed in 1938. This means that a lot less work has been done on the trail and extremely few, perhaps six, shelters on the trail overall. The Appalachain Trail has over 250 shelters.