By Angela Ballard, co-author of A Blistered Kind of Love, writer for the Forest Service PCT map series, former PCT Communicator editor, licensed emergency medical technician, and registered nurse.
I walked the entire Pacific Crest Trail last Saturday. By my side were trail enthusiasts as well as folks young and old who stumbled upon the route by accident. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which protects more than 100 million acres of the wildest land in our country, including 48 wilderness areas through which the PCT passes.
The PCT pop-up before the crowds walked through.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t actually in the Mojave Desert last weekend or quickly scaling 13,200-foot Forester Pass. But all 2,650 miles of the PCT were laid out before me including every lake, river, pass, and road crossing. In fact, every mile of the trail, in navigational detail, was represented by an inch on the floor thanks to U.S. Forest Service Cartographer Daniel Spring who assembled the ten Forest Service PCT maps (each comprised of four segments) end-to-end so that the entire length of the PCT stretched 100 feet across the marble floor of the Beaux-Arts-styled Riverbank Building (also known as the old Bank of Italy) in downtown Vallejo, Calif.
The building’s owner, Robert Brekke, helped convert the bank’s interior into an immersive trail experience which, in addition to the map, included two slideshows, audio tracks, vegetation samples, and a reading corner. The PCT’s northernmost miles flowed up a cartographer’s desk in the bank’s original vault, which had been converted for the show into a pre-digital-age cartographer’s office in tribute to the historical art of map-making.
Talking to some of the early visitors about the magic of the Pacific Crest Trail.
The exhibit was part of a greater festival called “Visions of the Wild” in multicultural Vallejo, which is home to the California regional Forest Service headquarters.
Sponsored by the Forest Service, the Vallejo Community Arts Foundation, and many other organizations (click here for a full list), “Visions of the Wild” spanned four days and brought some of the joys of the wilderness into the city via walks, films, speakers, art, ecopoetry, and, of course, the jumbo PCT map.
Even at one inch to the mile, the PCT is really long! Daniel Spring had no idea whether it would fit into the bank until it was laid out.
“I wanted people to be able to see the trail up close and in detail… To find their favorite places, or discover new ones and then be able to look up and sense the massive extent of the PCT in one view,” Spring said. Along with event volunteer and retired cartographer Jean Ann Carroll, Spring dedicated years of work to the completion of the California portion of the PCT map series.
As author of the text that appears on the maps and a PCT thru-hiker, I was invited to see the maps in their glory, as well as to chat with visitors. Anitra Kass, PCTA Southern California Regional Representative also attended, sharing information about the PCTA and its work as well as her triple-crown long-distance hiking experiences.
The trail extended well into the vault – a neat ‘terminus’ for such an incredible trail.
“It was neat to just see the maps laid out end-to-end and to have that spatial awareness of the trail,” Kass said. “Many visitors were introduced to the trail for the first time and that’s a huge thing. People really got an understanding of the length and ruggedness of the trail and understood it better.”
A “trail register” allowed viewers to jot down their reactions to the installation:
- “I am inspired to go for a walk!”
- “Can’t believe I just walked the entire PCT… in short time! This was fabulous to see the expanse and impact of the trail.”
What a great way to be reminded that even when we can’t be on the PCT, we can be inspired by it and we can share our passion about it with others so they can be inspired, too.
While cartography is largely a digital endeavor today, the bank vault was set up with an ode to the old days of the art.