On Oct. 2, the Pacific Crest Trail Association joined the Appalachian Trail Conservancy to celebrate both trails’ 50th anniversary with an extraordinary four-hour live webcast broadcast from the Girl Scouts Heart of Central California Regional Program Center in Sacramento and ATC headquarters in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
The event was ... Read more
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) and the Pacific Crest Trail Association announced today that author Cheryl Strayed, writer of the bestselling memoir “Wild,” will headline the upcoming celebration of the 50th anniversary of both trails being designated as National Scenic Trails.
Strayed will speak on the importance of protected wild ... Read more
He could be called one of the founding fathers of trails in the United States. Though trails were well on their way to becoming a national treasure before Dan Ogden got involved, he helped ensure their longevity and survival.
As the assistant director of planning and research in the Bureau ... Read more
By Mark Larabee
Trail Gorilla Al Golightly, a soft-spoken but dedicated camp cook who greeted weary trail crews with food and encouragement for more than two decades, died Oct. 30 after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease. He was 79.
Al and his wife, Edwina, who goes by Neddie, were ... Read more
Lesya Struz, former PCTA board member, a volunteer founder of the PCTA’s Mount Hood Chapter in Oregon and the force behind the creation of a single permit for long-distance PCT travelers, died this week at her home in Boston, Mass. She was 68.
A 1991 PCT thru-hiker with the trail ... Read more
Today is the 49th birthday of the National Trails System Act.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed this seminal law on Oct. 2, 1968, dedicating the Pacific Crest and Appalachian national scenic trails. Surely, it was a landmark piece of legislation. But more importantly, it kicked off efforts that that continue ... Read more
An excerpt from the PCTA’s 2016 publication of The Pacific Crest Trail, Exploring America’s Wilderness Trail. The book is available on Amazon and in the PCTA online store.
By Mark Larabee and Barney Scout Mann
Since 2003, he has wandered the campground at Lake Morena County Park near Campo and ... Read more
An excerpt from The Pacific Crest Trail: Exploring America’s Wilderness Trail by Mark Larabee and Barney Scout Mann
Single women were spinsters and newspapers might identify a woman as Mrs. John Doe, not by her given name, Josephine. That’s how it was in 1899, when 32-year-old Catherine Montgomery came ... Read more
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